LICENSE documentation
Bob Eager
rde at tavi.co.uk
Wed Sep 14 07:19:27 UTC 2016
I recently had a minor patch (to one of the ports I maintain) bounced
because I hadn't specified a LICENSE.
This port never did have LICENSE, and it had been updated recently with
no issues. However, I was told that "I don't see any mention of any
kind of license in the package or on the site, so it should be
LICENSE= NONE. Note that without clear licensing terms it's impossible
to legally use and redistribute the code."
(I did erroneously interpret that, initially, to be saying that there
MUST be a real license specified, although I realise from the above
that NONE is acceptable (and presumably meets the criteria for "clear
licensing terms")).
Let me make it absolutely clear that I am not criticising or
questioning the committers; they are just doing their job.
However, I wonder if two things ought to be done:
1) There should be something in the Porter's Handbook about LICENSE.
There is little or none, merely material about licensing in a more
general sense. I would produce an update myself, but given the above, I
am probably not the best person!
2) portlint currently says: "WARN: Makefile: Consider defining LICENSE.
0 fatal errors and 1 warning found." This is not really correct if
LICENSE is mandatory.
Thanks!
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