On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 2:17 PM Neal Gompa <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 2:03 PM Jilayne Lovejoy <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > > > As has been mentioned here prior, Richard and I are having a look at the > > Licensing part of the Wiki with an eye towards any updates and > > improvements, as well as moving that to the Fedora Docs (along with David > > C's work on the database for the license info). > > > > Recently Richard posted here regarding an attempt to better define the > > Fedora license categories in terms of what constitutes a "good" license. He > > referenced the use of the terminology of "good" and "bad" to indicate > > whether a license is approved for use in Fedora or not. > > > > I wanted to raise that separately b/c as we go through the documentation, > > how to best explain things in the clearest way comes up. It'd be helpful > > to hear people's views on this. > > > > Historically - "good" has meant the license is approved for use in Fedora; > > "bad" has meant the license is not approved for use in Fedora; and then > > there are also three nuanced categories related to fonts, documentation, > > and content which mean that certain licenses are only approved for use in > > that context, but not otherwise approved. > > > > How do people feel about the use of "good", "good-for-fonts", "bad", etc > > to describe these categories? Would simply using "approved", > > "approved-for-fonts", "not-approved", etc. be easier to understand? > > > > I'll throw in my opinion here, since I'm asking for that of others: I'm > > kind of mixed on this. I always thought the good/bad indicator was kind of > > nice in it's informality. However, now that I'm looking more closely at > > documentation, sometimes the use of good and bad can end up reading oddly. > > Practically speaking, I think use of "approved" and "not-approved" might > > end up being easier to understand. Good/bad also also has a greater > > connotation of judgement versus simply "approved" - which implies more > > closely that it must be approved for something. So, I guess I'd lean > > towards simply using "approved" and "not-approved". > > > > Given that "good" and "bad" are historical for the Fedora licensing > > documentation - what are your thoughts on this? > > > > Fedora's licensing documentation is designed for not only packagers, > but for developers to use to make value judgements. The usage of > "good"/"bad" terminology and the emphasis on value judgements > throughout our documentation on licensing is oriented around this. I > would personally prefer to keep it structured that way because it > makes understanding the impact and referencing it to others much > simpler. > > The usage of "approved"/"not-approved" explicitly removes the value > judgement aspect and I think that would be a major loss for us.
I see the problem with "approved"/"not-approved" as being that it sounds relatively unpleasantly "corporate" compared to "good"/"not good" which have an attractive, vaguely humorous, vaguely countercultural quality in keeping with some aspects of Fedora's roots. But the problem with "good"/"not good" is precisely around value judgments. Most of these "good" licenses are not really that good at all -- they are tolerable but in some cases barely acceptable. They meet minimum standards -- sometimes questionably so. I'm not suggesting those standards need to be made stricter; they're actually already pretty strict. But I wouldn't want to give the message that we actually think most (if not all) of these licenses are "good" in the normal English language sense of "good". So on balance I'd support "approved" or "acceptable" over "good". Richard _______________________________________________ legal mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected] Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
