This has been discussed many times over the years. If interested, please read https://github.com/spdx/spdx-spec/issues/63 for a conversation that started in 2015 and was finally resolved in 2020 with consensus on the current state.
If I remember correctly, since it was only a matter of personal preferences[*], we decided to go with the easiest way and have a single way of expressing an operator, in uppercase ASCII characters. Noone was keen to start seeing things like “curl aNd Caldera oR MIT”. *: Even in this thread we already had > I personally find the uppercase operands difficult to read and > I must confess that I have the opposite opinion -- zvr From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Steve Kilbane Sent: Tuesday, 21 November, 2023 08:55 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [spdx] Allowing lowercase operands ("and"/"or"/"with") *twitch twitch* > It doesn't make sense to me that the identifiers are case-insensitive but the > operands are case-sensitive I know it’s just a typo, but the identifiers are the operands. It’s the operations you’re discussing. steve From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Mary Hardy via lists.spdx.org <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at 00:39 To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [spdx] Allowing lowercase operands ("and"/"or"/"with") [External] Does the operand case affect tooling? A quick Bing Chat tells me that most languages have case sensitive Boolean values. Isn't our goal to enable automation? I must confess that I have the opposite opinion, that the upper case Booleans are easier to read and pick out, but I am accustomed to writing Boolean statements. Mary -----Original Message----- From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Neal Gompa via lists.spdx.org Sent: Monday, November 20, 2023 3:55 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [spdx] Allowing lowercase operands ("and"/"or"/"with") [You don't often get email from [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Learn why this is important at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification__;!!A3Ni8CS0y2Y!5f5vtepU0fJpMAC3RZaGdQkU2v7co2pGk2CtpjbCZ6udDTunDcZGyBpaYV5ABzz6XQZd09qVXi9YgKRChm-jikq_75mDBf183O5y$<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification__;!!A3Ni8CS0y2Y!5f5vtepU0fJpMAC3RZaGdQkU2v7co2pGk2CtpjbCZ6udDTunDcZGyBpaYV5ABzz6XQZd09qVXi9YgKRChm-jikq_75mDBf183O5y$> ] On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 4:28 PM Richard Fontana <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 3:28 PM Neal Gompa > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > > Hey folks, > > > > As Fedora has been moving toward SPDX identifiers, I'd like to > > revisit something I brought up several years ago: the enforcement of > > uppercase operands. > > > > I personally find the uppercase operands difficult to read and they > > make the whole stanza difficult for me to easily pick out the > > individual licenses. > > > > For example, one of my packages has this: GPL-2.0-or-later and MIT > > and BSD-1-Clause and BSD-2-Clause and BSD-3-Clause and BSL-1.0 and > > LGPL-2.1-or-later and CC0-1.0 and (CC0-1.0 or OpenSSL or Apache-2.0) > > and LicenseRef-Fedora-Public-Domain and (BSD-3-Clause or > > GPL-2.0-only) > > > > For me, I find this tremendously easier because all the identifiers > > are capitalized, so I can easily read the total combination and then > > process the boolean logic described. > > > > When all the operands are uppercase, it's hard for me to tell at a > > glance between license tags and operands, and it's much more > > difficult for me to read. > > > > There's an insistence that SPDX mandates uppercase operands, but > > from what I can tell, tools don't care one way or another. Can we > > please adjust SPDX guidance so lowercase operands are permitted? > > (not sure if this should be on spdx-legal, this is a question about > the SPDX license expression grammar) > Well, that's why I sent it to spdx@ and not the other lists. > I assume this would require a change to the SPDX spec, which says: > "License expression operators (AND, OR and WITH) should be matched in > a case-sensitive manner." > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://spdx/__;!!A3Ni8CS0y2Y!5f5vtepU0fJpMAC3RZaGdQkU2v7co2pGk2CtpjbCZ6udDTunDcZGyBpaYV5ABzz6XQZd09qVXi9YgKRChm-jikq_75mDBVAQ7LQm$<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/spdx/__;!!A3Ni8CS0y2Y!5f5vtepU0fJpMAC3RZaGdQkU2v7co2pGk2CtpjbCZ6udDTunDcZGyBpaYV5ABzz6XQZd09qVXi9YgKRChm-jikq_75mDBVAQ7LQm$> > .github.io%2Fspdx-spec%2Fv2.3%2FSPDX-license-expressions%2F&data=05%7C > 01%7CMARYHARDY%40microsoft.com%7Ca2f4dedd009a45ee2b9908dbea243cab%7C72 > f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C638361213585051994%7CUnknown% > 7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJX > VCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qZOxt84fInlBEWXd2DPFgkPQO%2FwFoH3xsqA > pnIH%2FT8I%3D&reserved=0 > Yes, I assume so. It doesn't make sense to me that the identifiers are case-insensitive but the operands are case-sensitive. Admittedly, a generous reading implies that the important aspect is that the statement uses consistent case, but I know people have generally interpreted it differently. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth! Intel Deutschland GmbH Registered Address: Am Campeon 10, 85579 Neubiberg, Germany Tel: +49 89 99 8853-0, www.intel.de <http://www.intel.de> Managing Directors: Christin Eisenschmid, Sharon Heck, Tiffany Doon Silva Chairperson of the Supervisory Board: Nicole Lau Registered Office: Munich Commercial Register: Amtsgericht Muenchen HRB 186928 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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