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Re: why unacceptable license condition: ruby-license ?



"OBATA Akio" <obache%netbsd.org@localhost> writes:

> On Sun, 21 Nov 2010 11:15:22 +0900, Greg Troxel <gdt%ir.bbn.com@localhost> 
> wrote:
>
>>> Okay to add that to DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES and
>>> default_acceptable_licenses ?
>>
>> Perhaps, but not quite.  Two issues, both solvable I think:
>>
>> 1) The key question is whether either the FSF considers the Ruby license
>> to be Free, or the OSI considers it to be Open Source.  The Ruby license
>> is GPLv2 or some hard-to-understand obviously-intended-to-be-Freeish
>> conditions.   So therefore I think it's Free.
>>
>> 2) If we decide that ruby's license meets the pkgsrc definition of Free
>> or Open Source, then the license file should be moved to ruby from
>> ruby-license.
>>
>>
>> So if you think my analysis is ok, I think it's ok for you to mv the
>> license from ruby-license to ruby, update all the files that point to
>> it, and put it in DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES.
>
> "ruby-license" has double meaning.  1) Ruby's original license itself
> 2) dual license (Ruby original and GPLv2).

OK, but in pkgsrc "foo-license" is defined to mean the text in
pkgsrc/licenses/foo-license.  I agree we should choose those contents
wisely, and that's what the rest of this mail is about.

> 2) came from the head of ruby-license, dual-licensing clause.  Neither
> FSF nor OSI approve Ruby original license as Free.  But from 2), FSF
> approve it as Free [1].

So is there any code available under the original non-Free ruby license
that anyone cares about?  If so, I think we need
licenses/original-ruby-license, and if not we cna ignore it.

> One more information, Ruby's license had been changed to "Ruby's
> original and 2-clause-BSD" in the repository [2].

So when we have software released under that and update we can adapt.

> Should we consider current and new Ruby's license separately?

Absolutely.  Just because two licenses were published by the same group
and have similar names has no bearing on copyright rules.

> How about set "RUBY_LICENSE=ruby-license AND gnu-gpl-v2", same as
> PERL_LICENSE (and it will be changed to "ruby-license AND
> 2-clause-bsd")?

But ruby-license is a file in pkgsrc that says "GPLv2 or
old-non-Free-ruby-terms".  So just doing what you suggest is confusing,
and one must follow either GPLV2 or the original, not both, so it should
be OR.

> [1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html [2]
> http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/repositories/revision/ruby-19?rev=29262

Trying to summarize, I think the situation is

  long ago, there was a non-Free ruby license (that was trying to be
  freeish or free).  Pretty much no useful software is available now
  under just that license.   Let's call this "original-ruby-license".

  There is a lot of current code under the terms "GPLv2 or
  original-ruby-license".  This is expressed in
  pkgsrc/licenses/ruby-license.

  There will be new ruby code under "2-clause-BSD or
  original-ruby-license".


So, I think we have three plausible approaches

PLAN A:

  ignore original-ruby-license

  mv ruby-license ruby-gplv2
  change all references
  add ruby-gplv2 to DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES

  add ruby-2bsd (when a package is updated that uses it)
  add ruby-2bsd to DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES

or PLAN B:

  add original-ruby-license
  drop ruby-license

  define RUBY_GPL2_LICENSE to be "gplv2 OR original-ruby-license"
  define RUBY_2BSD_LICENSE to be "2-clause-BSD or original-ruby-license"

  use RUBY_* terms on ruby packages

or PLAN C:

  ignore the original ruby license

  set ruby packages with GPL2-or-original to GPL2
  # add a comment in ruby pkg itself explaining that it's disjunctive
  # dual but we're ignoring that

  set ruby packages with 2BSD-or-original to 2BSD
  # with a comment once


Given the move to a 2-clause-BSD, I'd say the original license becomes
irrelevant, because no one would want to copy under the original when
the 2-clause-BSD is far easier to understand and grants more permissions.

PLAN A leads to having extra files for every use of disjunctive dual
licensing.  Disjunctive dual licensing makes sense when it lets GPL and
BSD projects work together (and share code from GPL projects back to BSD
projects), but otherwise it feels like a patch to an earlier messy
license.

So I am in favor of PLAN C.  But if there are people who object to
copying ruby under GPL2* *within the context of pkgsrc*, and they want
to do the work to get from C to B, making sure the OR stuff really
works, that seems fine with me.

* That wouldn't make sense to me, and if so I'd like to hear an
  explanation.


Sorry this is so long, but I think it's a strength of pkgsrc that we are
careful about licenses.

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