tech-pkg: Re: [RFC] Where to put license files?

Subject: Re: [RFC] Where to put license files?
To: Roland Illig <rillig@NetBSD.org>
From: Johnny C. Lam <jlam@NetBSD.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 09/28/2005 17:09:11

Roland Illig wrote:
> 
> the licenses/ directory currently holds all kinds of software licenses. 
> Some of them aren't used at all in pkgsrc, while other packages have 
> licenses that aren't listed in this directory.
> 
> To improve the situation, I suggest that single-package licenses are 
> installed in their package directory. For example, 
> fprot-workstation-license should be 
> security/fprot-workstation/bin/LICENSE, as this is the only package 
> using this license.
This sounds fine, if I understand correctly that widespread or very
common licenses would still find a home in pkgsrc/licenses -- it would
only be the one-off licenses, e.g. your fprot-workstation example, that
would reside in the package directory.
I would suggest two refinements:
(1) Have LICENSE_FILE default to ${PKGDIR}/${LICENSE} so that we have
 the same naming convention for single-package licenses as what
 currently exists in pkgsrc/licenses.
(2) In much the same way that there is mk/defaults/options.descriptions
 file, I think we'll need a similar file that lists the various
 licences that are used by packages in pkgsrc that may be easily
 consulted by the user, and probably by any ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES logic
 in bsd.pkg.mk.
	Cheers,
	-- Johnny Lam <jlam@NetBSD.org>