[oe] LICENSE, LICENSE and LICENSE

[Frans Meulenbroeks]

2010/10/20 Denys Dmytriyenko <denis at denix.org>:
> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 09:15:54PM +0200, Frans Meulenbroeks wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Being bored while waiting for a build to finish, I decided to to a
>> grep for LICENSE on recipes/*/*
>>
>> As already reported on an earlier email about 375 recipes have no
>> LICENSE (according to recipe_sanity).
>>
>> After a little bit of editing and sorting I came to the list at the
>> end of this email.
>> First digit is the number a license occurs, 2nd field is the license itself.
>>
>> Some concerns:
>> - GPL seems to be the most widely string used, but this does not say
>> too much. Is this v1, v2, v3, or maybe v1+, v2+, v3+
>> - Using ${PN} as license string might seem as a nifty way to save
>> typing a few letters, but it does not help with scripts that process
>> recipes
>> - we seem not too consistent wrt spelling wand writing things (for
>> example: GPLv2, GPLV2, GPL-2, GPL2)
>> - some of these use licenses that I have never heard of and for some I
>> have some doubts (e.g "closed" "various" "as-is" "python-style" ...)
>>
>> BTW: I've no plans to clean this up. I've been there in another world,
>> and it is boring like hell (and in that world I was at least paid for
>> it)
>> Just want to pass the results.
>
> Frans,
>
> I've done a similar exercise some time ago and collected this list for my
> personal use, when I was fixing licenses for the recipes/packages I'm
> interested in. I did fix a number of them already, as well as my fellow
> co-workers[1]. I also see you recently took care of many perl-related recipes
> yourself.
>
> So far it was in the "scratch the itch" mode - when we see some packages
> reporting incorrect or unspecific licenses, we fix them. Hopefully, this way
> we can correct the majority of recipes and leave the remainder as a janitorial
> work, as Chris suggested...
>
> [1] http://cgit.openembedded.org/cgit.cgi/openembedded/log/?qt=grep&q=LICENSE&ofs=25
>
Actually I think I need to revisit the perl recipes, as it might well
be Artistic | GPLv1+ instead of Artistic | GPL

BUt my major concerns is that there is not really a decent way to
define the remainder. They are not easily identifiable as such.
This makes a janitor having to start from scratch.

Frans.