[Buildroot] [PATCH 04/21 RFC] core/legal-info: allow ignoring packages from the legal-info

[Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>]

Luca, Thomas, All,

On 2015-11-17 18:35 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
> Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> >On Mon, 16 Nov 2015 23:46:59 +0100, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> >>It might be necessary to not even mention a package in the output of
> >>legal-info:
> >>
> >>   - virtual package have virtually nothing to save in the legal-info
> >>     output;
> >>
> >>   - for Buildroot itself, host-gcc-initial and host-gcc-final are not
> >>     real packages, they are just two different steps of the same
> >>     package, gcc;
> >>
> >>   - for proprietary packages, it might not even be legal to even mention
> >>     them, being under NDA or some other such restrictive conditions.
> >>
> >>Add the new 'IGNORE' keyword to the _REDISTRIBUTE package variable, so
> >>that the legal-info infra will simply completely ignore that package.
> >>
> >>Signed-off-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
> >>Cc: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
> >
> >I understand the idea, but I'm not a big fan of a boolean variable that
> >is no longer a boolean variable.
> >
> >So, let me question the current handling of <pkg>_REDISTRIBUTE = NO.
> >Does it make sense to mention such packages in the legal-info output,
> >since their source code is not saved anyway?
> >
> >Shouldn't we simply change the behavior of <pkg>_REDISTRIBUTE = NO to
> >be that such packages are not listed at all in the legal-info output,
> >which would match what you're looking for for with this "IGNORE" thing ?
> >
> >Luca, do you see any drawback in completely omitting REDISTRIBUTE = NO
> >packages from legal-info ?
> 
> Indeed I think we need that behaviour for some binary-only packages.
> imx-vpu looks like a good example. Its COPYING file contains the
> following clause:
> 
> >3.4.             You must reproduce any and all of Freescale's (or its third
> >party licensor's) copyright notices and other proprietary legends on copies of
> >Licensed Software.
> 
> To the best of my understanding this means we must mention the package
> and its legal wording in legal-info.
> 
> Thus your proposed change of meaning for REDISTRIBUTE = NO is probably
> not doable.
> 
> How about changing the entire REDISTRIBUTE meaning from a boolean to an
> enumerative? Values would be:
> 
>  - ALL: equals current YES
>  - METADATA: equals current NO, produces no tarball
>  - NOTHING: equals Yann's IGNORE
>  - YES: deprecated, for backward compatibility
>  - NO: deprecated, for backward compatibility
> 
> In other words, change the meaning of REDISTRIBUTE from "do you want to
> redistribute the tarball?" to "what do you want to redistribute?".

Well, I don't really care whether we call it IGNORE or NOTHING or
whatever makes more sense. I'm also fine with deprecating YES and NO
to replace them with more meaningful values.

What I care about is having the ability to mark a package for the
following conditions:

  - redistribute "source" archive, list in the manifest and save
    licensing files,

  - list in the manifest and save licensing files,

  - completely omit the package from legal-info.

As Luca explained, there are packages for which we should not
redistribute the "source" archive, but which we must list in the
manifest. Luca talked about imx-vpu, I was thinking about
nvidia-driver.

The new possibility that I would want is to completely ignore the
package from the legal-info output, as there might be legal reasons that
the mere existence of that package should not be disclosed.

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

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