Thanks Jilayne for finding this. I just committed a fix to the SPDX tools to do all license ID comparisons ignoring case yet retaining the case for any translations etc (e.g. running SPDX translate to translate a spreadsheet to tag/value will retain the case of the license ID's in the document).
It will be in the next binary release of the tools. Gary > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:spdx-tech- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of J Lovejoy > Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2015 10:18 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Are SPDX license identifiers case-sensitive? (Ben Balter) > > I feel like we had this conversation before on this topic and David’s > suggestion was raised, which I also agree with…. digging into meeting minutes > I found: > > - http://wiki.spdx.org/view/Technical_Team/Minutes/2014-09- > 16#Case_sensitivity_for_license_information - the tech team discussed this on > 16 Sept 2014, note saying “License ID’s case sensitive” > > - and then the legal team discussed it - > http://wiki.spdx.org/view/Legal_Team/Minutes/2014-09-18 - and concluded: > • Mark raised issue of whether SPDX License List short identifiers and > (new) license expression operators should be case sensitive with the Tech Team > and discussed further here: decided that for purposes of spec, in terms of a > legitimate value, both could be case insensitive (but best practice would be > to display with precise capitalization). Mark to go back to tech team with > this decision. > > So… looks like maybe we didn’t really capture this elsewhere? In any case, I > don’t see a reason to have them be case sensitive in terms of matching (for > tools), but have them display with the upper/lower case as they are shown in > the SPDX License List - it’s easier for humans to read/spot :) > > What do we need to do to capture this and make any official changes? > > Jilayne > > > Message: 1 > > Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 21:54:17 +0000 > > From: Ben Balter <[email protected]> > > To: "Wheeler, David A" <[email protected]>, "Gary O'Neall" > > <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" > > <[email protected]> > > Subject: Re: Are SPDX license identifiers case-sensitive? > > Message-ID: > > <CANFb=ww9b9UCX-BCBdze=9z2+0jfgeqqetya3vtpkfsybhf...@mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > Realize Licensee is just one implementation, but completely agree with > > everything David just described (downcased matching, mixed cased display). > > > > - Ben > > > > On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 4:44 PM Wheeler, David A <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> My personal preference would be that the license identifiers be > >> **matched** by forcing everything to lower case, AND that SPDX > >> encourage **displays** of a license identifier to use the exact > >> mixed-case as shown in the SPDX lists. The mixed-case forms use > >> normal English conventions (all-caps for acronyms, initial caps for > >> proper names), and it?s NICE to have a display that uses standard > >> conventions. However, requiring exact-case matching is a recipe for > >> subtle mistakes; the actual matching should be case-insensitive, just like > license expressions which use them are. > >> > >> > >> > >> I note that the OSI website accepts both the exact-case and the > >> all-lower-case versions of the SPDX license IDs. That?s why I say ?to > >> lower case? instead of ?match ignoring case? ? in the case of URLs, > >> you have to know EXACTLY what to transform it to before you can get > >> matching ignoring case. (I realize that in Greek there are 2 lower > >> case s?s, but there are no license id?s with Greek letters and there > >> IS a way to deal with that anyway, so that?s not relevant.) > >> > >> > >> > >> The ?licensee? gem could reply with a new ?SPDX? field that returned > >> the mixed-case string value, while doing lookups on all lower case. > >> > >> > >> > >> --- David A. Wheeler > >> > >> > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Spdx-tech mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.spdx.org/mailman/listinfo/spdx-tech _______________________________________________ Spdx-tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.spdx.org/mailman/listinfo/spdx-tech
