git: 028827a7f1 - main - license-guide: Copy edit
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Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2022 23:25:07 UTC
The branch main has been updated by imp:
URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/doc/commit/?id=028827a7f1eab68479e920e67faedafd28868299
commit 028827a7f1eab68479e920e67faedafd28868299
Author: Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>
AuthorDate: 2022-11-07 18:50:18 +0000
Commit: Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>
CommitDate: 2022-11-08 23:23:38 +0000
license-guide: Copy edit
Various suggestions to improve the grammar, spelling and clarity of the
document.
Suggested by: pauamma (with changes by me)
Reviewed by: pauamma
Sponsored by: Netflix
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D37304
---
.../content/en/articles/license-guide/_index.adoc | 50 +++++++++++-----------
1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)
diff --git a/documentation/content/en/articles/license-guide/_index.adoc b/documentation/content/en/articles/license-guide/_index.adoc
index c7d19a69ba..d60b6dd947 100644
--- a/documentation/content/en/articles/license-guide/_index.adoc
+++ b/documentation/content/en/articles/license-guide/_index.adoc
@@ -49,11 +49,11 @@ New contributions to FreeBSD should use the BSD-2-Clause license.
The FreeBSD project discourages completely new licenses and variations on the standard licenses.
New licenses require the approval of {core-email} to reside in the main repository.
In the past, non-standard licenses have generated more problems than standard ones.
-Poor drafting usually causes non-standard licenses have more unintended consequences, so they are unlikely to be approved by {core-email}.
+Poor drafting of non-standard licenses often causes more unintended consequences, so they are unlikely to be approved by {core-email}.
The FreeBSD project is standardizing on the BSD-2-Clause license, as published by SPDX.
-In addition, project policy specifies code licensed under some non-BSD licenses must be placed in specific sections of the repository.
-In some cases, compilation must be conditional or disabled by default.
+In addition, project policy requires that code licensed under some non-BSD licenses must be placed in specific sections of the repository.
+For some licenses, compilation must be conditional or disabled by default.
For example, code in the static part of the GENERIC kernel must be licensed under the BSD or substantially similar licenses.
GPL, APSL, CDDL, etc, licensed software must not be compiled into the static GENERIC kernel.
Code with these licenses may be used in pre-compiled modules, however.
@@ -68,9 +68,9 @@ Any questions or concerns should immediately be brought to the attention of {cor
The following sections outline the project's Software License Policies in detail.
For the most part we expect developers to read, understand and utilize the sections above this one in order to apply appropriate licenses to their contributions.
The rest of this document details the philosophical background to the policies as well as the policies in great detail.
-As always if the text below is confusing or if you are questioning how to apply these policies, please reach out to {core-email}.
+As always, if the text below is confusing or you need help with applying these policies, please reach out to {core-email}.
-=== Philosophy
+=== Guiding Principles
The FreeBSD Project aims to produce a complete, BSD-licensed operating system allowing consumers of the system to produce derivative products without constraint or further license obligations.
We invite and greatly appreciate the contribution of both changes and additions under the two-clause BSD license, and encourage the adoption of this license by other open source projects.
@@ -78,11 +78,11 @@ Use of the BSD license is key to encouraging the adoption of advanced operating
We accept however that compelling reasons exist to allow differently-licensed software to be included in the FreeBSD source tree.
-We require any software under alternative licenses to be carefully isolated in the source tree so that it cannot contaminate BSD-only components.
+We require software licensed under some non-BSD licenses to be carefully isolated in the source tree so that it cannot contaminate BSD-only components.
Such cautious management encourages licensing clarity and facilitates the production of BSD-only derivative products.
-Unless a special exception is made, no existing BSD-licensed components may be replaced with differently-licensed software.
-We instead encourage FreeBSD and third party developers to seek the relicensing, dual-licensing, or reimplementation of critical components under the BSD license.
+Unless a special exception is made, no existing BSD-licensed components may be replaced with more restrictively licensed software.
+We encourage FreeBSD and third party developers to seek the relicensing, dual-licensing, or reimplementing of critical components under the BSD license instead.
Such would ease their more integral adoption into the FreeBSD operating system.
=== Policy
@@ -117,6 +117,9 @@ All the BSD releases had it, in order comply with the https://en.wikipedia.org/w
With the ratification of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention[Berne Convention] in 2000 by Nicaragua, the Buenos Aires Convention -- and the phrase -- became obsolete.
As such, the FreeBSD project recommends that new code omit the phrase and encourages existing copyright holders to remove it.
In 2018, the project updated its templates to remove it.
+* Initially, many items in the FreeBSD tree were marked with BSD-2-Clause-FreeBSD.
+However, SPDX has obsoleted the license as a variant; and the SPDX text of the obsolete tag differs enough from the standard FreeBSD license that it shouldn't be used.
+A review of its current use is ongoing.
==== Acceptable licenses
@@ -171,8 +174,6 @@ Files that do not have an explicit license are licensed under the BSD-2-Clause l
== License File Location
-
-
To comply with the https://reuse.software/[REUSE Software] standard as much as possible, all license files will be stored in the [.filename]#LICENSES/# directory of the repository.
There are three subdrectories under this top level directory.
The [.filename]#LICENSES/text/# subdrectory contains, in detached form, the text of all the licenses that are allowed in the FreeBSD software collection.
@@ -182,10 +183,11 @@ These files are stored using the exception identifier name followed by .txt.
The [.filename]#LICENSES/other/# contains, in detached form, the license files references in SPDX-License-Identifier expressions, but aren't otherwise allowed as detached licenses.
All such files must appear at least once in the FreeBSD software collection, and should be removed when the last file that references them is removed.
Licenses that have no adequate SPDX matching license must be in [.filename]#LICENSES/other/# and have a filename that starts with LicenseRef- followed by a unique idstring.
-No files have currently been identified, but if they are, a full list will appear here.
+No such files have currently been identified, but if they are, a full list will appear here.
-The FreeBSD Project currently does not make use of the `DEP5` files described in the `RESUSE Software` standard.
+The FreeBSD Project currently does not make use of the `DEP5` files described in the `REUSE Software` standard.
The FreeBSD Project has not marked all the files in the tree yet in accordance with this standard, as described later in this document.
+The FreeBSD Project has not yet included these files in its repsoitories since this is policy is still evolving.
[[individual-files]]
== Individual Files License
@@ -195,24 +197,24 @@ How they are marked varies and is described in this section.
A copyright notice identifies who claims the legal copyright to a file.
These are provided on a best effort basis by the project.
-Because copyrights may be legally transferred, the current copyright holder may vary from what is listed in the file.
+Because copyrights may be legally transferred, the current copyright holder may differ from what is listed in the file.
A license is a legal document between the contributor and the users of the software granting permission to use the copyrighted portions of the software, subject to certain terms and conditions set forth in the license.
Licenses can be expresssed in one of two ways in the FreeBSD software collection.
Licenses can be explicit in a file.
-When a license grant is explicit in the file, that file may be used, copied and modified in accordance with that license.
+When a license grant is explicit in the file, that file may be used, copied, and modified in accordance with that license.
Licenses can also be expressed indirectly, where the text of the license is elsewhere.
-The project uses the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) license identifiers for this purpose, as described in the following subections.
+The project uses the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) license identifiers for this purpose, as described in the following subsections.
SPDX license identifiers are managed by the SPDX Workgroup at the Linux Foundation, and have been agreed on by partners throughout the industry, tool vendors, and legal teams.
For further information see https://spdx.org/ and the following sections for how the FreeBSD Project uses them.
-Entities that contribute fixes and enhancments to the software collection without an explicit license agree to license those changes under the terms that apply to the modified file(s).
-Project policy, in line with industry practice, only includes a copyright notice from signficant contributors to the files in the collection.
+Entities that contribute fixes and enhancements to the software collection without an explicit license agree to license those changes under the terms that apply to the modified file(s).
+Project policy, in line with industry practice, only includes a copyright notice from significant contributors to the files in the collection.
There are four types of files in the FreeBSD software collection
-. Files that have only an explicit copyright and license.
-. Files that have both an explicit copyright and license, and a SPDX-License-Identifier tag.
-. Files that have only a copyright and only an SPDX-License-Identifier tag, but no explicit license
+. Files that have only an explicit copyright notice and license.
+. Files that have both an explicit copyright notice and license, and a SPDX-License-Identifier tag.
+. Files that have only a copyright notice and an SPDX-License-Identifier tag, but no explicit license
. Files that lack any copyright or license at all
=== Only Copyright and License
@@ -240,7 +242,7 @@ The license for files containing only the SPDX-License-Identifier should be cons
Include all the copyright holders.
. For each sub-expression, copy the license text from [.filename]#LICENSE/text/`id`.txt#.
When exceptions are present, append them from [.filename]#src/share/license/exceptions/`id`.txt#.
-SPDX-License-Identifier expresions shall be construed as described in the SPDX standard.
+SPDX-License-Identifier expresions should be construed as described in the SPDX standard.
Where `id` is the SPDX short license identifier from the `Identifier` column of https://spdx.org/licenses/[SPDX Identifiers] or https://spdx.org/licenses/exceptions-index.html[license exception].
If there is no file in [.filename]#LICENSE/#, then that license or exception cannot be specified as a detached license under this section.
@@ -252,7 +254,7 @@ Many SPDX files have sample copyright notices that are understood to be examples
. When names of entities are referred to in the license text, they shall be construed to apply to the list of all copyright holders listed in the copyright notices of the licensed file.
For example, the BSD-4-clause license contains the phrase "This product includes software developed by the organization". The phrase 'the organization' should be replaced by the copyright holders.
. When the SPDX offers variations of the license, it is understood the license in the [.filename]#LICENSE/# file represents the exact version of the license selected.
-The SPDX standard exists to match families of licenses and these variations aide in matching similar licenses that the SPDX organization believes to be legally identical.
+The SPDX standard exists to match families of licenses and these variations help match similar licenses that the SPDX organization believes to be legally identical.
For licenses that have slight variations in text, the SPDX has guidelines to match them.
These guidelines are not relevant here.
@@ -299,7 +301,7 @@ Old files that use this convention should be converted as appropriate.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
....
-`WITH` should be used when there is a modifier to a license needed.
+`WITH` should be used when a license modifier is needed.
In the FreeBSD project, a number of files from LLVM have an exception to the Apache 2.0 license:
[.programlisting]
@@ -319,7 +321,7 @@ For example, some dtsi files are available under dual licenses:
....
`AND` should be used if the file has multiple licenses whose terms all apply to use the file.
-For example, if code has been incorporated by a series of project, each with their own license:
+For example, if code has been incorporated by several project, each with their own license:
[.programlisting]
....