I found that net/wireshark (in pkgsrc-2009Q1) didn't build, because of LICENSE= gnu-gpl-v2 The code to handle Free LICENSE tags was not switched on when 2009Q1 was branched. See mk/license.mk - the branch is at 1.11 and the enabling commit was 1.12. So therefore it's a bug in net/wireshark/Makefile to have this line. This happened from pulling up a security fix (1.29.2.1 of net/wireshark/Makefile). I have submitted a pullup request to fix this. Isn't that incorrect? As far as I understand, you don't need to accept the GPL when you want to compile (or use) a GPL-covered program. Only when you want to distribute it. This is a common misconception about pkgsrc and licensing due to unfortunate variable naming. Putting a license tag in ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES doesn't mean (to me) that a human is "accepting a license" in the sense of entering into a contract. It means simply that the license is added to the set of licenses for which pkgsrc will not decline to build programs. I would like to change the word but finding something that captures this notion and isn't awkward is hard. PKGSRC_NONFAIL_LICENSES doesn't seem right... I understand the notion of contract license vs bare license and what you said about the GPL and distibuting. But pkgsrc's mechanism is just "Don't build programs that have licenses not in ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES." The user's intent, whether anybody cares about redistributing, and other issues are all outside the scope of this simple mechanism. The mechanism's original purpose was "Don't build non-free code by accident." and now it's a bit more general but still in that spirit.
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