[arch-dev-public] License cleanup

[Travis Willard]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:15:47 -0400
"Dan McGee" <dpmcgee at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/3/07, Andrew Fyfe <andrew at neptune-one.net> wrote:
> > Travis Willard wrote:
> > > Hey guys,
> > >
> > > You may have noticed I added license information to a handful
> > > (~27ish) packages in [extra] - this email is just to keep you
> > > informed as to what I'm doing.
> > >
> > > Right now, I'm just adding license fields where I can.  For many
> > > of them, I'm simply searching Gentoo's package search and adding
> > > the licenses that come up there.  If the package in question
> > > isn't in Gentoo's tree, I've been looking at the website and
> > > downloading sources.  For custom licenses, I'm even adding the
> > > command at the end of the build() function to install the license
> > > to the proper directory.
> > >
> > > What I'm NOT doing:
> > > . Rebuilding any of these packages - I doubt users would
> > > appreciate needing to redownload their whole systems to get
> > > updated license information only.
> > > . Updating any of these packages to newest version - I've already
> > > come across a couple that are definitively out of date, one whose
> > > sources I couldn't even download to add the proper
> > > license-installation instruction into the build() method.  I'm
> > > not updating these - the point of what I'm doing is to add
> > > licenses, not make our entire repo uptodate.  Maybe that'll come
> > > later. ;)
> > >
> > > In any case, I think I'm done for tonight; I'm feeling pretty
> > > tired.  If anyone wants to join me in this crusade, check out my
> > > thread entitled "Useful Scripts", grab the script that checks for
> > > bad licenses, and give it a run in your cvs dir for extra or
> > > unstable or community (making sure to run cvs update first!) -
> > > that'll give you a niiiice long list of packages that need
> > > tending to.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Travis
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > arch-dev-public mailing list
> > > arch-dev-public at archlinux.org
> > > http://archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch-dev-public
> >
> > Attached is a patch for each repo, they mainly contain
> > - typo fixes
> > - Artistic => PerlArtistic
> > - zlib => custom:zlib
> > - license="..." => license=(...) (aesthetic, but the license field
> > should be a bash array)
> >
> > The patches can be applied with `patch -Np1` (-Np2 for
> > repo-current.patch) from /var/abs.
> >
> > Andrew
> 
> Did anyone act on this? Doesn't seem like there is reason not to patch
> in some licenses stuff.
> 
> If no one speaks up I guess it gets assigned to me.
> 
> -Dan

Damnit, I meant to comment on this but I forgot.  :(

The problem with a patch against the whole repo based on what abs pulls
down is that abs only grabs stuff that's tagged CURRENT, while there
may be updates to packages that haven't been rebuilt yet; for example,
any of the license-addition I've done isn't tagged CURRENT yet 'cause I
didn't do any rebuilds.  I'm not sure how cleanly the patch would apply.

Anywho, I plan to do some more work on the license front shortly.

--
Travis