Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:43:20 -0700 From: Gary Kline <kline@tao.thought.org> To: Robin Schoonover <end@endif.cjb.net> Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Drop of portindex Message-ID: <20040916004320.GB68701@thought.org> In-Reply-To: <20040915175615.11c92103@zork> References: <20040915093120.3067472e@dolphin.local.net> <3.0.5.32.20040915104438.01f2dda0@sage-american.com> <200409151833.55714.michaelnottebrock@gmx.net> <20040915175615.11c92103@zork>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 05:56:15PM -0600, Robin Schoonover wrote: > On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:33:54 +0200 > Michael Nottebrock <michaelnottebrock@gmx.net> wrote: > > > > Yes, that concerns me as well. One thing that surely can be learnt > > from this episode is that ports committers (not excluding myself here) > > need to be more careful about the licensing situation of software > > before committing it to ports (I was told previous version of > > portindex had stuff like "(c) 2004 Radim Kolar, GPL" in one source > > file and "public domain" in another, but no general license attached > > to the whole package). > > > > Just to continue the confusion, (on his site) he also listed the > software on his site as being distributed as "Open Source" with a link > to the OSI site. > > > I'm not saying we need to go debian on the ports-tree and waste > > valuable time doing endless licensing reviews and ridiculous debating, > > but things like portindex clearly must not be committed that easily in > > the future. > > > > I think it was alright for it to be commited to the ports tree. However, > software included in the ports tree should stay recognized as 3rd party > software and inclusion is subject to change. Also, we should be more > careful on what allow ourselves to mirror. I don't think that fact that > a lack of License prevents distribution is noticed enough. We easily > enough notice when some Company X decides to port a product/release > source to FreeBSD (or Linux) and explcitely requests that it not be > redistributed, but we didn't notice this. > > I think we may want to record what the license for the port is in the > Makefile. For example: > > LICENSE= GPL > > If multiple parts are somehow under multiple licenses, we could also do: > > LICENSE= GPL BSD > > For things like what we have with portindex, we'd do: > > LICENSE= unknown > > and warn that the license to redistribute the required tarballs is > unknown. (Also, don't mirror on ftp.freebsd.org in this case) > > It's just something to chew on. (I think netbsd's pkgsrc might already > do something like this). > My dime's worth is that this may be an A+ idea. Bg: around 5 years ago I talked to thr author of "xv" who said he was making around $100K/year from his work. That was why I licensed my misc/muuz differently. <<what? me greedy??>> Nutshell is that I've gone back to the GPL. But yes, people can chance their mind whenever. Those who initially go GPL or GPL/BSD or BSD are likely to be gung-ho open source and willing to share back. (Apologies for my temp lapse.) Other than making people sign their name in blood.... (??) gary -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org www.thought.org Public service Unix
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040916004320.GB68701>