svn commit: r327005 - in head: sbin/ipfw sys/sys usr.sbin/watch

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> On 12/19/17 21:55, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Dec 19, 2017, at 19:15, Rodney W. Grimes <freebsd at pdx.rh.CN85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Author: pfg
> >>>> Date: Tue Dec 19 22:40:16 2017
> >>>> New Revision: 327005
> >>>> URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/327005
> >>>>
> >>>> Log:
> >>>>   SPDX: These are fundamentally BSD-2-Clause.
> >>>>
> >>>>   They just omit the introductory line and numbering.
> >>> I again must assert that it would be better to not apply an SPDX than to
> >>> apply one that is not an exact match for the license.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Not being a lawyer, I would normally agree, however:
> > This isnt about any legal issue.
> >
> >> 1) SPDX IDs are only advisory: we always keep the exact license text, which is what has legal value.
> > And we should do our best to provide the most accurate advisory we can,
> > and we know that this is not a direct copy of the BSD 2 clause, so making
> > advice that it is, IMHO, would be poor advice.
> >
> >> 2) The license is detected by license scanners as BSD and it has two clauses so the description fits.
> > And a human reading it sees it reads like a 2 clause but does not match a 2 clause exactly so
> > how do I trust any of this SPDX stuff as being done with some ration of sanity.
> >
> >> FWIW, according to SPDX lawyers, the numbering is not relevant and it would appear to me that the phrase:
> >>   "Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:? doesn?t add any information to the two clauses, which read:
> > Again, not a legal issue, an issue of this is not an exact BSD-2-Clause so I
> > do not believe that we should tag it as such.  Basically if we are doing this
> > "close enough" thing it means the SPDX tags are actually pretty useless for
> > anyone trying to do a legal evaluation cause they are just going have to
> > completly redo what was done in adding the SPDX tags, and if that is the
> > case we should seriously consider just what value do these have in the
> > tree?
> >
> >
> Indeed .. after having the change reviewed by someone objective, I have 
> reverted the change in r327040.
> 
> Thanks for speaking up!

No problem, and I have now also read the guidlines and to a larger
extent most of the SPDX spec so I am now also more informed.

Thanks for going the extra mile to get clarification!

> Pedro.

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org