[pkgsrc/trunk]: pkgsrc/doc document need for or and and multiple licenses.

[gdt <gdt%pkgsrc.org@localhost>]

details:   https://anonhg.NetBSD.org/pkgsrc/rev/37f79a766b0c
branches:  trunk
changeset: 537434:37f79a766b0c
user:      gdt <gdt%pkgsrc.org@localhost>
date:      Tue Jan 08 23:17:25 2008 +0000

description:
document need for or and and multiple licenses.

note that documentation that talks about a user "accepting a license"
should be rewritten to not give the impression that pkgsrc operations
give rise to contracts (no one on the pkgsrc team is qualified to give
such an opinion).

diffstat:

 doc/TODO |  45 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 files changed, 40 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diffs (61 lines):

diff -r d4ed6983a793 -r 37f79a766b0c doc/TODO
--- a/doc/TODO  Tue Jan 08 23:07:21 2008 +0000
+++ b/doc/TODO  Tue Jan 08 23:17:25 2008 +0000
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-$NetBSD: TODO,v 1.6964 2008/01/08 22:49:33 wiz Exp $
+$NetBSD: TODO,v 1.6965 2008/01/08 23:17:25 gdt Exp $
 
 Suggested new packages
 ======================
@@ -1458,12 +1458,47 @@
 Licenses of packages
 ====================
 
-[Please add here any package that requires the user to accept anything
-else than a single, simple license. List the files and how they are
-combined (one-of, all, additional-license-per-option, ...). This
-information will be used to extend the license framework as needed.]
+[This section contains discussion of enhancements needed to the
+licensing framework.]
+
+       o Some packages are dual licensed, meaning that permission is
+         granted to copy under either of two licenses.  An example is
+         perl, with the license choice being GPL or the Artistic
+         license.  A way is needed to encode this situation in a
+         LICENSE= statement.  Possibilities include:
+
+         * Add a new license file that explains the dual licensing
+            situation and refers to license files for the two
+            licenses.  This may not scale, but a small number may
+            cover many common cases (in particular, GPL/Artistic may
+            cover most of them).
+
+         * Add some syntax that expresses dual licensing by referring
+            to multiple licenses.  For example, one could redefine the
+            value of LICENSE= to be an s-expression rather than a
+            token, and ues "(dual gnu-gpl-v2 artistic)".
 
+       o Some packages have multiple licenses, each covering a
+         different part of the package.  Redistribution requires
+         following the terms of all them.  It is not clear how often
+         this situation occurs, but an example is openssl when
+         patented algorithms are enabled.
 
+         * We could use "(multiple gnu-gpl-v2 modified-bsd)" to
+            represent this.
+
+       o The dual and multiple license situations can occur at the
+         same time, so ideally an arbitrary grammer is in order.
+         But this seems too complicated.
+
+       o Documentation sometimes refers to a user "accepting a
+         license".  This wording makes it sound like pkgsrc
+         operations give rise to contracts, and pkgsrc should be as
+         neutral as possible as such issues.  The documentation
+         should be adjusted to instead refer to the user instructing
+         pkgsrc not to refrain from building packages with such a
+         license tag.  This is awkward, so a shorter phrase is needed
+         which does not give the impression of a contract.
 
 Suggested pkgsrc enhancements
 =============================