Hi,

Philip McGrath <xxxxxx@philipmcgrath.com> writes:

[...]

>>> 3) Ensure that all files include SPDX metadata specifying the license of
>>> the file, provided that there exists appropriate metadata for that license.
>>>
>>> Is that satisfactory to you?  Does anyone else object to it at this point?
>> Let me try to rephrase with my added REUSE requirements:
>> 0) Ensure the the SRFI text includes the text of the MIT/Expat
>> license.
>> 1) Ensure that all the source and data files to be included in the
>> repo
>>     use a permissive (non-copyleft) free software license, ideally the
>>     same MIT/Expat as the text.  Each file should contain a copyright
>>     notice, and each legally significant (> 15 lines of code) file should
>>     contain the license notice text.
>>
>
> I'd approach these items differently.
>
> 1a) For existing files that contain license notices, all existing
> notices shall be retained as-is, and corresponding Reuse metadata
> shall be added.

That seems to make consensus thus far.

> The strongest reason for this approach is to unambiguously satisfy the
> requirement that the original "notice shall be included". But the
> situation is different when the license notice wasn't placed in the
> file by the original author. Therefore, I would propose:
>
> 1b) For existing files that do not already contain license notices,
> only Reuse metadata shall be added. For files that support comments,
> the metadata SHOULD be included as comments.
>
> 1c) For new SRFIs, all source and data files MUST have Reuse
> metadata. For files that support comments, the metadata SHOULD be
> included as comments. Files MAY also include license notice text at
> the preference of the author, or to satisfy preexisting requirements
> if the file was not written for the SRFI: in such cases, the Reuse
> metadata MUST accurately correspond to the other license notices.

This makes sense to me, but at least John objected to omitting the
license notices text from the files, on the grounds that it would make
it harder to satisfy the Expat (MIT) license when copying single files
around (as copiers would also need to copy the separate LICENSES/MIT.txt
file to satisfy the license terms).

> My strong preference is to allow future authors to choose to give
> notice in the form "SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT" and similarly to
> avoid inserting the full text of the license when the original author
> chose not to do so. In my experience, when I read, "Permission is
> hereby granted, free of charge, to any person", the mind tends to fill
> in the rest of what it expects to see there. It takes very close and
> deliberate attention to verify that there are no subtly differences
> from the canonical text: the quasi-X11 license I pointed out in SRFI
> 104 is not the first time I have nearly mistaken a different license
> for the canonical MIT license. In contrast, I can easily mechanically
> verify that "LICENCES/MIT.txt" contains the canonical text.
>
>> 2) The "reuse lint" command should pass, i.e. the SRFI is REUSE
>>     compliant.  This implies that every source at least contains a
>>     SPDX-License-Identifier tag with the license, and that a LICENSES/
>>     directory contains the referenced licenses text.
>>
>
> I've used "Reuse metadata" above to leave open the possibility that,
> when appropriate (primarily for files that don't support comments),
> the ".licenses" or ".reuse/dep5" methods may be used to give the
> metadata. Likewise, adding SPDX-FileCopyrightText is not required when
> the file already contains a copyright comment in another form
> recognized by Reuse.

If I'm not mistaken, the 'reuse' tool doesn't (shouldn't) care whether a
license was added via SPDX metadata or via the .reuse/dep5 file or a
.license suffixed file name; so 'reuse lint' should cover all these as
well.

--
Thanks,
Maxim