Hi,
I made all projects at https://gitlab.com/savapage REUSE
compliant. As I understood, the COPYING file in the root directory is
not needed anymore, because it is replaced by the /LICENSES directory.
Also, the LICENSE.spdx file contains "PackageLicenseDeclared:
AGPL-3.0-or-later". Therefore I removed the COPYING file from each project.
Now, the admin of the https://directory.fsf.org who is evaluating
SavaPage submission, states:
"1. please create a text file named COPYING inside the root of each
module, fill it with an integral copy of the license under which its
shipped. The file must contain only a license, unaltered;"
Above that ...
"2. please ensure all hidden files are under the same license of the
package and if not change the headers;
3. please ensure that /LICENSES/ contains only free software licenses
and only the licenses used in the module;"
Since I made sure that all projects passed the "reuse lint" test, I am
in doubt how to (additionally?) comply to the FSF Free Software
Directory requirements.
What is best practice?
--
Kind regards,
Rijk Ravestein, Technical Lead
https://www.savapage.org
Hi,
I'm currently evaluating if we can adapt Reuse also for the Qt Project (qt.io), but want to understand Reuse better before proposing it to the whole project.
Is there some best practice to handle template licenses like BSD-3-clause, that have parts that is more often than not adapted by individual authors?
https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause.html
The red parts mark text snippets that are often adapted, but still allow the whole license to be qualified as BSD-3-clause. So while the conditions of the BSD-3-clause are obviously the same, it seems to me that each and every of these
variants create a slightly different license, and I'm not sure it's ok to just ignore these variants - especially if they are not just about an added comma, or the way paragraphs are enumerated, but about e.g. company names instead of 'COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS'.
Is there any common practice to handle this? I could think of
A) Creating variants like LicenseRef-BSD-3-Clause-xxx.txt that exactly match the original text.
B) Keeping the original text in the source files, and have a SPDX-LicenseIdentifier: BSD-3-clause line in addition.
C) Just ignoring the 'data loss'
IMO A) arguably defeats the purpose of the Reuse standard. B) preserves all information, but then consumers might still need to parse the source files ...
Does Reuse have any recommendations regarding this?
Thanks!
Kai
--
Kai Köhne, Director R&D | The Qt Company
The Qt Company GmbH, Erich-Thilo-Straße 10, D-12489 Berlin
Geschäftsführer: Mika Pälsi, Juha Varelius, Jouni Lintunen
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Berlin, Registergericht: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, HRB 144331 B