Re: Proposal to use SPDX for SRFI license/copyright declarations Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe 07 Dec 2023 18:31 UTC

On 2023-12-07 03:43 -0500, Philip McGrath wrote:
> Just in an attempt at clarity, I'd distinguish three courses of action one
> might consider:
>
> 1. Add SPDX metadata, but do not remove anything. I'm not aware of any
> objections to this course of action.
>
> 2. Add SPDX metadata and remove existing comments, leaving the full text of
> the MIT license nowhere. ...
>
> 3. Add SPDX metadata and move the full text of the MIT license to a separate
> file distributed alongside the original file. This at least arguably could
> satisfy the requirements of the license ...

Thanks for summarizing these in detail, Philip.

I am willing to remove comments in the SRFIs of which I'm the sole
author (all two of them), and I support recommending this, plus
SPDX metadata, for future SRFIs. I don't think this should be done
to other SRFIs unless the authors agree and unless, as Philip says,
the result is actually better.

I'm very dubious about replacing *all* license information with a
URL. SPDX is about 12 years old, according to Wikipedia.
Organizations come and go. Giving future lawyers a LICENSE file to
argue over seems better than giving them a dead link.

Regards,

Wolf

--
Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe  <xxxxxx@sigwinch.xyz>