-----Original Message-----
From:Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org <Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org> On Behalf Of
Alexios Zavras
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2024 7:07 AM
To: Jonas Smedegaard<d...@jones.dk>; Richard Fontana
<rfont...@redhat.com>
Cc: SPDX-legal<spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org>
Subject: Re: XML format is unsatisfactory
Richard, interesting discussion, but I think your reasoning is backwards, from
historical perspective.
Keep in mind that license-list-XML keeps data and metadata about licenses.
The metadata is easy: stuff like short identifier, when it was added, whether
it's OSI approved, links for the original text, etc. etc.
I agree that these can be represented in any format (XML, YAML, JSON, TOML,
text in key-value pairs, ...).
Then we have the data: it started out as pure text, then we wanted to have
some structure (split into paragraphs, or bullet lists), then we had to
represent
that some parts of the text are optional (they could be present or not), then
there were also alternatives (something must be there, but maybe the content
is not arbitrary).
XML is the best format for describing text with markups -- the billions of web
pages in HTML (an XML with specific set of tags) attest to that.
A "simple {{mustache-style}} curly braces markup when needed" will simply
not do -- you want tags to contain other elements (an <optional> that includes
<list> that includes <item> that includes <alt>). There are two ways to achieve
this: by marking the start and end or by nesting structures. XML uses start/end
tags; other markup systems use either one (or both). I have long experience in
every conceivable setup.
Based on the requirements to describe the text with markups, XML was
selected. And since we had it for the data, it made sense to have it for
metadata as well.
I don't think that "makes it easier to generate usable HTML" was high in the
criteria ever.
So, is this a discussion on how to represent the metadata, how to represent
the data, or both? If people are uncomfortable with having the metadata
expressed in XML, I would not object to split the metadata in a different
format (YAML, TOML, whatever). But finding an acceptable alternative for the
actual text... I would be *very* interested to see a practical proposal.
--
zvr
-----Original Message-----
From:Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org <Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org> On Behalf Of
Jonas Smedegaard
Sent: Monday, 15 January, 2024 06:29
To: Richard Fontana<rfont...@redhat.com>
Cc: SPDX-legal<spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org>
Subject: Re: XML format is unsatisfactory
Quoting Richard Fontana (2024-01-15 06:22:47)
On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 12:01 AM Jonas Smedegaard<d...@jones.dk>
wrote:
Quoting Richard Fontana (2024-01-14 23:41:55)
On Sun, Jan 14, 2024 at 2:47 PM Jonas Smedegaard<d...@jones.dk>
wrote:
The XML files is a representation of RDF.
Another more human readable and editable RDF repræsentation
exists which is a *lossless* conversion: Turtle.
On a Debian-based system, you can see how MIT license looks as
Turtle by installing te package raptor2-utils, an then run this command:
rapper -i rdfxml -Ohttp://spdx.org/licenses/ -o turtle
MIT.rdf
This sounds interesting but:
[ref@charlie ~]$ rapper -i rdfxml -Ohttp://spdx.org/licenses/ -o
turtle MIT.rdf
rapper: Parsing URI MIT.rdf with parser rdfxml
rapper: Serializing with serializer turtle and base URI
http://spdx.org/licenses/ @base<http://spdx.org/licenses/> .
rapper: Error - URI MIT.rdf - Resolving URI failed: Could not
resolve
host: MIT.rdf
rapper: Failed to parse URI MIT.rdf rdfxml content @prefix rdf:
<http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
rapper: Parsing returned 0 triples
Sorry, I thought it was obvious but realize now that I should have
been
explicit: You need to `cd` to the path where the MIT.rdf is located
- i.e. you need to checkout the git repository for the sources first.
Ah, I see. So:
[ref@charlie rdfxml]$ rapper -i rdfxml -Ohttp://spdx.org/licenses/ -o
turtle MIT.rdf
rapper: Parsing URIfile:///home/ref/license-list-data/rdfxml/MIT.rdf
with parser rdfxml
rapper: Serializing with serializer turtle and base URI
http://spdx.org/licenses/ @base<http://spdx.org/licenses/> .
@prefix rdf:<http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix spdx: <../rdf/terms#> .
@prefix doap:<http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#> .
@prefix ptr:<http://www.w3.org/2009/pointers#> .
@prefix rdfs:<http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
<MIT>
spdx:crossRef [
spdx:isLive false ;
spdx:isValid true ;
spdx:isWayBackLink false ;
spdx:match "N/A" ;
spdx:order "0"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#int> ;
spdx:timestamp "2024-01-05T20:12:47Z" ;
spdx:url"https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"; ;
a spdx:CrossRef
] ;
spdx:isDeprecatedLicenseId false ;
spdx:isFsfLibre true ;
spdx:isOsiApproved true ;
spdx:licenseId "MIT" ;
spdx:licenseText """MIT License
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
\"Software\"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH
THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
""" ;
spdx:licenseTextHtml """
<div class=\"optional-license-text\">
<p>MIT License</p>
</div>
<div class=\"replaceable-license-text\">
<p>Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
</p>
</div>
<p>Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of <var class=\"replaceable-license-text\"> this
software and
associated documentation files</var> (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction,
including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify,
merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to
whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:</p>
<p>The above copyright notice and this permission notice
<var class=\"optional-license-text\"> (including the next
paragraph)</var>
shall be included in all copies or substantial
portions of the Software.</p>
<p>THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT
WARRANTY
OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN
NO EVENT SHALL <var class=\"replaceable-license-text\"> THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS</var> BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.</p>
""" ;
spdx:name "MIT License" ;
spdx:standardLicenseTemplate """<<beginOptional>>MIT License
<<endOptional>> <<var;name=\"copyright\";original=\"Copyright (c)
<year> <copyright holders> \";match=\".{0,5000}\">>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of <<var;name=\"software\";original=\"this software and
associated documentation
files\";match=\"this\\s+software\\s+and\\s+associated\\s+documentation
\\s+files|this\\s+source\\s+file\">>
(the \"Software\"), to deal in the Software without restriction,
including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software,
and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice<<beginOptional>>
(including the next paragraph)<<endOptional>> shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL <<var;name=\"copyrightHolder\";original=\"THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS\";match=\".+\">> BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM,
DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR
OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR
THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
""" ;
a spdx:ListedLicense ;
rdfs:seeAlso"https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"; .
rapper: Parsing returned 19 triples
This doesn't really seem to be any better than (and actually seems
worse than) the license-list-XML file "MIT.xml" for purposes of
readability and maintainability.
How so?
Because it doesn't look like YAML?
- Jonas
--
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website:http://dr.jones.dk/
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