2009/8/8 Allan McRae :

Anton Shestakov wrote:

...

Hey there. I want to submit sdlmame-cheats package to AUR. Basically, this package would provide a single file; archived collection of user-provided xml files for using in sdlmame. But I have some difficulties with it's license. I couldn't find it nor on the official site, nor in the archive.

Actually, I've asked on local forum what license they are providing their work under [1]. The reply was, I quote, "Any individual cheats in this forum/submitted can be taken as Public Domain. I don't know if the collection needs a license or what type of license to put on the full collection". So what do you think, can I put a "license=('PD')" in PKGBUILD? Or even no license at all?

[1] http://www.mamecheat.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3450&start=0

Public Domain has no consistent definition across coutries so is not good for an unwritten licence.  I'd use license=('unknown').

Allan

The CC0 license is a better alternative to public domain: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_FAQ If you use Public Domain or CC0, please make sure to install a copy of the terms in /usr/share/licenses/$pkgname as these are not in the licenses package.