License information for extensions on LO's extension site

[Andreas Mantke]

Hello Stephan,

there is no way to comment directly on my blog.

Am 30.08.2018 um 12:19 schrieb Stephan Bergmann:
> I don't find a way to comment directly at
> <https://amantke.de/2018/08/29/some-hints-on-publishing-extensions/>,
> so moving that here.  Quoting that blog post:
>
> [...]
>> But without a proper license the Extension it is not appropriate to
>> publish the Extension on the LibreOffice Extensions website.
>>
>> But it is not a very difficult task to add such a license information
>> to the Extension. Just add a text file with the license to the
>> Extension (zipped) container (preferably in a subfolder) and update
>> the description.xml with the following xml-tag:
>>
>> <registration>
>> <simple-license accept-by=”admin” suppress-on-update=”true” >
>> <license-text xlink:href=”<relative link to the license file>”
>> lang=”en” />
>> </simple-license>
>> </registration>
>
> The description.xml simple-license element is about asking the user to
> actively accept a license before installing/using the extension.  This
> is awkward UX and I guess that many extensions do not want to bother
> users with click-through license bla bla.
>
It's not the question if they (the extension developer) want it. They
have to ask for an agreement on the license during the install process.
If they don't do that there will be no license agreement.
My take is,  that in this case there is no clear rule, if and for what
purpose the user is allowed to use the extension software. But it's
clear that there is no agreement to use the extension software on the
ground of a free software license. And thus it could not published on
the LibreOffice extensions website.

> I don't think that it is a good idea to tie the question of whether an
> extension is suitably licensed for publishing on LO's extension site
> to the presence of such a simple-license element.

In my view it is necessary, that a LibreOffice extension that is
published on a TDF resource, has a clear license statement and presents
this license statement to the user during the installation process.
Because the installation routine gives only the way with the xml-tag
above, this is the way to do it. If the implementation is ugly from your
point of view, you could improve it. But at least there has to be a
workflow to accept the license during the installation process.

That's my view and I'm following it as long as I'm responsible for the
website and the review of the extensions on it.

Cheers,
Andreas