Jens Reyer writes ("New upstream changing license, typo and SPDX-License-Identifier"): > 1. LGPL-2+ --> LGPL-2.1+ > ======================== > > One has a notice for the "GNU Lesser General Public License" v2 (or > later).[2] However in v2 the LGPL was the "GNU *Library* General Public > License, while it only became the "GNU *Lesser* General Public License" > in v2.1. The project ships a COPYING file[3] (since nearly the > beginning of the projects history), identical to > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.txt
There is no problem with the licence name change. LGPL 2.1 ("Lesser") has a rubric which clearly identifies it as a successor to LGPL 2 ("Library"). > It's clear that the project aims for license compatibility with Wine > (LGPL-2.1+), but I assume this is not relevant for my first question: > > Is it ok to simply change the license notice to 2.1+? Yes. (Subject to the difficulty discussed below.) > But then again the LGPL 2.1 states that we have to "[...] publish on > each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; > keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the > absence of any warranty[...]". There is no problem with this. Licence version upgrade is routine, if "or later" has been used. > 2. SPDX-License-Identifier > ========================== > > Currently some files (small helper scripts, luckily only by authors we > can ask for permission) have a custom license notifier for LGPL-2.1 only > (but not later).[4] I'd like to change this (with the authors' > permission). To respect the wish for a short license notice in these > files, I've suggested to use the SPDX-License-Identifier instead: > > -# This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. > -# > -# This is free software, placed under the terms of the GNU > -# Lesser Public License version 2.1, as published by the Free > -# Software Foundation. Please see the file COPYING for details. > +# SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1+ This is not human-readable. I would avoid it, personally. By "not human-readable" I don't mean that it's not clear what licence this refers to. What it lacks is a clear declaration that the file is released under the named licence. I would suggest simply adding the missing words: ... Lesser Public License version 2.1 {+ or later +}, as ... The intent is then clear, even if a bit abbreviated. In the discussion of the pull request, Austin says "However src/winetricks has had many more authors than just myself/Dan/Joseph". This is true, but it is only these three files Makefile src/linkcheck.sh src/release.sh which seem to have the problematic statement, AFAICT. That's the output of git-grep -l 'Lesser Public License' | xargs git-grep -L 'or later' So we need only ask the contributors to those files, who are AsciiWolf Austin English daniel.r.kegel[@gmail.com] I think AsciiWolf must be Joseph ? But anyway that committer committed only 4 lines to Makefile in one commit, which is a minimal contribution which probably doesn't attract the copyright monopoly. I see Austin is happy. So I think you just need agreement from Daniel. Ian. -- Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own. If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.