LEGAL variable to capture generic issues

[Fabian Keil]

Eitan Adler <lists at eitanadler.com> wrote:

> I have been trying to capture the differences between LEGAL and the ports tree.
> At this point I am convinced we need a new variable to capture in a
> machine usable way issues such as "special permission granted to
> distribute under the GPL" or "No license -- see
> http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html".  Furthermore some ports define
> NO_PACKAGE for reasons of legality (GPL issues) and others defined it
> for other reasons (the package becomes too big).  We have no method to
> differentiate between these two reasons.
> 
> I'd like to add a global "meta" variable that captures this
> relationship.  This would add the ability to mark per port special
> text to be included in LEGAL even if it doesn't affect the ports tee
> behavior.
> 
> The patch below would require a little bit of additional work (ports
> which defined NO_PACKAGE for reasons other than legality would also
> need to define LEGAL_PACKAGE= yes).  This would make it much easier to
> autogenerate LEGAL from the tree.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> 
> Index: Mk/bsd.port.mk
> ===================================================================
> --- Mk/bsd.port.mk	(revision 315169)
> +++ Mk/bsd.port.mk	(working copy)
> @@ -161,6 +161,9 @@ FreeBSD_MAINTAINER=	portmgr at FreeBSD.org
>  #				  but distfiles can be put on ftp sites and CDROMs.
>  # FORBIDDEN		- Package build should not be attempted because of
>  #				  security vulnerabilities.
> +# LEGAL_TEXT	- Port has legal issues (e.g., special
> +# 				  permission to distribute, lacks a license).
> +# LEGAL_PACKAGE	- Port has no legal issues but defines NO_PACKAGE

As a ports maintainer I'm neither willing nor able to guarantee
that my ports have no "legal issues".

In fact some of my ports are (according to the upstream) licensed
under the GPLv2 which is partly invalid in my jurisdiction.
Would this "legal issue" require a LEGAL_TEXT?

Fabian
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