[AppStream] Generalized SPDX licenses for metadata license
John Scott
jscott at posteo.net
Tue Jan 5 02:33:15 UTC 2021
To be clear, I understand that not using one of the permissive licenses
enumerated in the AppStream specification is a bad idea to be avoided at all
costs, and I share disdain for license proliferation. I also understand why
copyleft licenses are not suitable.
That said, the role of the permissive license list seems unclear. The
specification only says that such suitable licenses *include*, and then
enumerates them. Is this the minimum set of licenses which implementations may
accept, or the maximum?
It would be an artificial restriction for implementations not be allowed to
accept others, or aliases, and frankly I don't think any static list can be
put together without seeming contrived.
It is my hope that the AppStream specification retains its rationale for
choosing permissive licenses, and enumerates its recommendations, but it be
stated at least that using any other license identifier, SPDX or otherwise,
results in unspecified or implementation-defined behavior.
Some of this is touched on at the issue below, but it does not clearly
distinguish the specification from the reference implementation.
https://github.com/ximion/appstream/issues/195
In particular many projects are already licensed under permissive licenses
suitable for the metadata, and using a different license from the rest of the
project creates additional complexity, which ironically causes more licenses
to proliferate into upstream projects.
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