On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 08:08:29AM -0400, Ricardo SIGNES wrote:
> * Gabor Szabo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2008-06-04T04:50:51]
> > - Each distro should have a META.yml and a license field in it for
> > machines to check the license. (this one is probably not a legal
> > requirement but it will help the various automated tools)
>
> The license field in the META.yml is insufficiently specific. It has
> no way of declaring what version of a license is in use.
Had a think about this, and it occurred to me that the current field was
scoped in a way that seemed appropriate at the time, but as we've better
defined what license means, perhaps it's time to redefine it in the
spec.
As a suggestion, or starting point how about something like below:
Current:
========
license
Example:
license: perl
(Spec 1.0) [required] {string} The license under which this distribution may be
used and redistributed. See the Module::Build manpage for the list of valid
options.
Proposed:
=========
license
Example:
license:
- Artistic License:
version: 1.0
file: Artistic.txt
url:
http://search.cpan.org/src/RJBS/Software-License-0.005/lib/Software/License/Artistic_1_0.pm
- GPL:
version: 3
file: COPYING
url:
http://search.cpan.org/src/RJBS/Software-License-0.005/lib/Software/License/GPL_3.pm
(Spec 1.4) [required] {map} The license(s) under which this distribution may be
used and redistributed, using a YAML mapping to describe the version and the
file or url containing the full text of the license. For a full list of
acknowledged licenses please see the Software::License distribution -
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Software-License.
version
(Spec 1.4) [required] Explicit version number of the license under which the
distribution is being distributed.
file
(Spec 1.4) [optional] Local file containing full text of license.
url
(Spec 1.4) [optional] URL to a file containing full text of license.
[Note: although file and url are optional, at least one must exist.]
It would make it easier for tools to verify that the file or URL exist,
we could cite the Software::License as the recommend source for license
text and licenses, and it better allows for dual licensed modules to
explicity cite which licenses and versions they meant.
Existing META.yml files listing the license as a string, could still be
honoured, but for things like CPANTS, and ultimately Debian & RedHat
(where Gabor is heading) newer distributions would be able to make it
much clearer to packagers what license a distribution was meant to be
released under.
Cheers,
Barbie.
--
Birmingham Perl Mongers <http://birmingham.pm.org>
Memoirs Of A Roadie <http://barbie.missbarbell.co.uk>
