SPDX license review requests

SPDX license review requests

[Adam Dobes]

Hi everyone,

I have recently begun converting license names of licenses found in
Fedora's man-pages package to SPDX. Several of these licenses did not
have corresponding license identifier in SPDX. Because of this I have
submitted several license review requests for these licenses on SPDX
Github (links listed below). If you have any further comments
regarding these requests, please feel free to add them.

One of these licenses, LDP-1 (found in man5/dir_colors.5), was
unfortunately determined to be not-allowed in Fedora, so I'd like to
ask if it's possible to change the license of this man page so that it
can be included in Fedora.

Links to the issues mentioned above:
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1947
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1955
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1957
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1959

Regards,
Adam

Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi list!

We've got 4 derivatives of the "VERBATIM" (now one of them in SPDX
as Linux-man-pages-copyleft") license.  I'll paste here the four.

===========

$ cat LICENSES/Linux-man-pages-copyleft.txt 
Copyright (c) <year> <owner> All rights reserved.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
a permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting
from the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may
not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.

Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.

===========

$ head -n21 man2/set_mempolicy.2
.\" Copyright 2003,2004 Andi Kleen, SuSE Labs.
.\" and Copyright 2007 Lee Schermerhorn, Hewlett Packard
.\"
.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_PROF)
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
.\"
.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein.
.\"
.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
.\" %%%LICENSE_END

===========

$ head -n8 man2/getcpu.2
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2006 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
.\"
.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_ONE_PARA)
.\" Permission is granted to distribute possibly modified copies
.\" of this page provided the header is included verbatim,
.\" and in case of nontrivial modification author and date
.\" of the modification is added to the header.
.\" %%%LICENSE_END

===========

$ head -n13 man2/move_pages.2
.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
.\"                               Christoph Lameter
.\"
.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_TWO_PARA)
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
.\" %%%LICENSE_END

===========

And here go the copyright holders:

$ grep -rl VERBATIM man* \
| xargs grep -L 'VERBATIM_PROF' \
| xargs grep -hi -e copyright -e '(c)' \
| sort \
| uniq;
.\" Copyright (C) 2008-2014, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
.\" Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1998 Alan Cox.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1998 Heiner Eisen.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1998 Pawel Krawczyk.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>,
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Claus Fischer.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Matthew Wilcox <willy@bofh.ai>.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2000 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
.\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2006 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
.\" and Copyright (C) 2008 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
.\" and Copyright (C) 2016, Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de>
.\" and copyright (c) 1999 Matthew Wilcox.
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are

I CCd the ones for which I know their email.

===========

Here goes some comments about them:

The one and two paragraph licenses are almost identical to the usual
one.  There seems to be a small diference regarding translations in
the 2-paragraph one, being more restrictive.  Was that intentional?
Or maybe it was just an accident, and there was no intention of
disallowing translations?

Would you please relicense to either Linux-man-pages-copyleft or
VERBATIM_PROF?


Also, Linux-man-pages-copyleft seems to contain a sentence that
makes it differ from VERBATIM_PROF:

"""
  The author(s) may
not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.
"""

I believe the quality of non-professional code and manuals to be
at least as high as the professional one.  We have more freedom to
reject crap.  I propose also deprecating Linux-man-pages-copyleft
and moving to VERBATIM_PROF as the single surviving license from
all four variants.

We're also discussing the names that each of these four should be
given in SPDX.


I suggest (in order of appearance in this email):

-  Linux-man-pages-copyleft to be renamed to the following, and
   mark it as a deprecated license.

	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-nopro
	Linux man-pages Copyleft (non-professional)

-  VERBATIM_PROF to be SPDX'd as:

	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-qual
	Linux man-pages Copyleft (high quality)

-  VERBATIM_TWO_PARA to be SPDX'd as:

	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-notrans
	Linux man-pages Copyleft (no translations)

-  VERBATIM_ONE_PARA to be SPDX'd as:

	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-verbatim
	Linux man-pages Copyleft (verbatim)



Cheers,
Alex


On 5/18/23 14:38, Adam Dobes wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have recently begun converting license names of licenses found in
> Fedora's man-pages package to SPDX. Several of these licenses did not
> have corresponding license identifier in SPDX. Because of this I have
> submitted several license review requests for these licenses on SPDX
> Github (links listed below). If you have any further comments
> regarding these requests, please feel free to add them.
> 
> One of these licenses, LDP-1 (found in man5/dir_colors.5), was
> unfortunately determined to be not-allowed in Fedora, so I'd like to
> ask if it's possible to change the license of this man page so that it
> can be included in Fedora.
> 
> Links to the issues mentioned above:
> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1947
> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1955
> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1957
> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1959
> 
> Regards,
> Adam
> 


-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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[Minor self corrections.]

On 5/26/23 00:56, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi list!
> 
> We've got 4 derivatives of the "VERBATIM" (now one of them in SPDX
> as Linux-man-pages-copyleft") license.  I'll paste here the four.
> 
> ===========
> 
> $ cat LICENSES/Linux-man-pages-copyleft.txt 
> Copyright (c) <year> <owner> All rights reserved.
> 
> Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> preserved on all copies.
> 
> Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
> this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
> the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
> a permission notice identical to this one.
> 
> Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
> manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume
> no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting
> from the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may
> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
> professionally.
> 
> Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
> the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
> 
> ===========
> 
> $ head -n21 man2/set_mempolicy.2
> .\" Copyright 2003,2004 Andi Kleen, SuSE Labs.
> .\" and Copyright 2007 Lee Schermerhorn, Hewlett Packard
> .\"
> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_PROF)
> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> .\" preserved on all copies.
> .\"
> .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
> .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
> .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
> .\" permission notice identical to this one.
> .\"
> .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
> .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
> .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
> .\" the use of the information contained herein.
> .\"
> .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
> .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
> .\" %%%LICENSE_END
> 
> ===========
> 
> $ head -n8 man2/getcpu.2
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2006 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
> .\"
> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_ONE_PARA)
> .\" Permission is granted to distribute possibly modified copies
> .\" of this page provided the header is included verbatim,
> .\" and in case of nontrivial modification author and date
> .\" of the modification is added to the header.
> .\" %%%LICENSE_END
> 
> ===========
> 
> $ head -n13 man2/move_pages.2
> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
> .\"
> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_TWO_PARA)
> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> .\" preserved on all copies.
> .\"
> .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
> .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
> .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
> .\" permission notice identical to this one.
> .\" %%%LICENSE_END
> 
> ===========
> 
> And here go the copyright holders:

of _TWO_PARA and _ONE_PARA, which are the main ones I want to get rid of.
_TWO_PARA seems to be non-free according to Fedora (and they seem right).

> 
> $ grep -rl VERBATIM man* \
> | xargs grep -L 'VERBATIM_PROF' \
> | xargs grep -hi -e copyright -e '(c)' \
> | sort \
> | uniq;
> .\" Copyright (C) 2008-2014, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
> .\" Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1998 Alan Cox.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1998 Heiner Eisen.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1998 Pawel Krawczyk.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>,
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Claus Fischer.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 1999 Matthew Wilcox <willy@bofh.ai>.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2000 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2006 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> .\" and Copyright (C) 2008 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
> .\" and Copyright (C) 2016, Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de>
> .\" and copyright (c) 1999 Matthew Wilcox.
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> 
> I CCd the ones for which I know their email.
> 
> ===========
> 
> Here goes some comments about them:
> 
> The one and two paragraph licenses are almost identical to the usual
> one.  There seems to be a small diference regarding translations in
> the 2-paragraph one, being more restrictive.  Was that intentional?
> Or maybe it was just an accident, and there was no intention of
> disallowing translations?
> 
> Would you please relicense to either Linux-man-pages-copyleft or
> VERBATIM_PROF?
> 
> 
> Also, Linux-man-pages-copyleft seems to contain a sentence that
> makes it differ from VERBATIM_PROF:
> 
> """
>   The author(s) may
> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
> professionally.
> """
> 
> I believe the quality of non-professional code and manuals to be
> at least as high as the professional one.  We have more freedom to
> reject crap.  I propose also deprecating Linux-man-pages-copyleft
> and moving to VERBATIM_PROF as the single surviving license from
> all four variants.
> 
> We're also discussing the names that each of these four should be
> given in SPDX.
> 
> 
> I suggest (in order of appearance in this email):

Of course, I messed the order, but luckily I included the old names
so it's clear.

> 
> -  Linux-man-pages-copyleft to be renamed to the following, and
>    mark it as a deprecated license.
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-nopro
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (non-professional)
> 
> -  VERBATIM_PROF to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-qual
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (high quality)
> 
> -  VERBATIM_TWO_PARA to be SPDX'd as:

and mark it as a deprecated license.

> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-notrans
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (no translations)
> 
> -  VERBATIM_ONE_PARA to be SPDX'd as:

and mark it as a deprecated license.

> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-verbatim
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (verbatim)
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Alex
> 
> 
> On 5/18/23 14:38, Adam Dobes wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I have recently begun converting license names of licenses found in
>> Fedora's man-pages package to SPDX. Several of these licenses did not
>> have corresponding license identifier in SPDX. Because of this I have
>> submitted several license review requests for these licenses on SPDX
>> Github (links listed below). If you have any further comments
>> regarding these requests, please feel free to add them.
>>
>> One of these licenses, LDP-1 (found in man5/dir_colors.5), was
>> unfortunately determined to be not-allowed in Fedora, so I'd like to
>> ask if it's possible to change the license of this man page so that it
>> can be included in Fedora.
>>
>> Links to the issues mentioned above:
>> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1947
>> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1955
>> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1957
>> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1959
>>
>> Regards,
>> Adam
>>
> 
> 

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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On 5/26/23 01:03, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> [Minor self corrections.]
> 
> On 5/26/23 00:56, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>> Hi list!
>>
>> We've got 4 derivatives of the "VERBATIM" (now one of them in SPDX
>> as Linux-man-pages-copyleft") license.  I'll paste here the four.
>>

Here's some history of licenses in the Linux man-pages, from what I
can see in the prehistory branch:

Linux-man-pages-copyleft (previously, VERBATIM)
	This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
	3.25 (year 2010) in a single page:

		quotactl.2
			Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>

			A few pieces copyright (c) 1996 Andries Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
			and copyright 2010 (c) Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>

VERBATIM_PROF
	This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
	1.42 (year 2001) in a single page:

		sigwaitinfo.2
			Michael Kerrisk (mtk16@ext.canterbury.ac.nz)

VERBATIM_ONE_PARA
	This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
	1.24 (year 1999) in several pages:

		sendfile.2
			Pawel Krawczyk
		cmsg.3
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		rtnetlink.3
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		arp.7
			Matthew Wilcox <willy@bofh.ai>
		ddp.7
			Alan Cox
		icmp.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		ip.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		netdevice.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		packet.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		raw.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		rtnetlink.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		socket.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
			Matthew Wilcox
		tcp.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		udp.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		unix.7
			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>
		x25.7
			Heiner Eisen

VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
	This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
	3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:

		move_pages.2
			Added by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
			but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
			                  Christoph Lameter

	It was later reused in another page:

		migrate_pages.2
			Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
.\"                Author: Andi Kleen
.\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
.\"                               Christoph Lameter

	This license is the one considered non-free by Fedora, and which
	we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so they could be
	reasonably rewritten in a worst case.




-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Andi Kleen]

> 
> VERBATIM_ONE_PARA
> 	This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
> 	1.24 (year 1999) in several pages:
> 
> 		sendfile.2
> 			Pawel Krawczyk
> 		cmsg.3
> 			Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>

I assume there's no need to change these.

> VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
> 	This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
> 	3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:
> 
> 		move_pages.2
> 			Added by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
> 			but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> 			                  Christoph Lameter
> 
> 	It was later reused in another page:
> 
> 		migrate_pages.2
> 			Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
> .\"                Author: Andi Kleen
> .\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
> 
> 	This license is the one considered non-free by Fedora, and which
> 	we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so they could be
> 	reasonably rewritten in a worst case.

Not sure I followed why it is non-free, but I'm ok with relicensing my portions
of this to VERBATIM_ONE_PARA.

But I suppose you would also need agreement from the other contributors.

-Andi

Re: SPDX license review requests

[Lameter, Christopher]

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On Thu, 29 Jun 2023, Lukas Javorsky wrote:

>       >> VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
>       >>      This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
>       >>      3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:
>       >>
>       >>              move_pages.2
>       >>                      Added by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
>       >>                      but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>       >>                                        Christoph Lameter
>       >>
>       >>      It was later reused in another page:

The manpage was written by me and later edited by Michael as far as I 
remember.

>       >>
>       >>              migrate_pages.2
>       >>                      Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
>       >> .\"                Author: Andi Kleen
>       >> .\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
>       >> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>       >> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
>       >>
>       >>      This license is the one considered non-free by Fedora, and which
>       >>      we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so they could be
>       >>      reasonably rewritten in a worst case.

The licensing was GPL and not a proprietary one.

>       So, given this, if you give consent to change your pages to use
>       Linux-man-pages-copyleft, I'll do so provided for the pages that are
>       completely yours, and will keep in mind that when others agree, I'll also
>       change the pages that are shared.

I have no objections.

Re: SPDX license review requests

[Brian Inglis]

On 2023-06-29 10:01, Lameter, Christopher wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2023, Lukas Javorsky wrote:
>>       >> VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
>>       >>      This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
>>       >>      3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:
>>       >>
>>       >>              move_pages.2
>>       >>                      Added by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
>>       >>                      but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>>       >>                                        Christoph Lameter
>>       >>
>>       >>      It was later reused in another page:
> The manpage was written by me and later edited by Michael as far as I remember.
>>       >>
>>       >>              migrate_pages.2
>>       >>                      Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
>>       >> .\"                Author: Andi Kleen
>>       >> .\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
>>       >> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>>       >> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
>>       >>
>>       >>      This license is the one considered non-free by Fedora, and which
>>       >>      we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so they could be
>>       >>      reasonably rewritten in a worst case.
> The licensing was GPL and not a proprietary one.
>>       So, given this, if you give consent to change your pages to use
>>       Linux-man-pages-copyleft, I'll do so provided for the pages that are
>>       completely yours, and will keep in mind that when others agree, I'll also
>>       change the pages that are shared.
> I have no objections.

Updating these licences are really nice to haves for this project.

Just to be clear, the FSF and Fedora issue is only with *dir_colors*(5) licensed 
under *LDPv1* which contains the contentious clause:

	"c) You must not add notes to the Document implying that the reader had better 
read something produced using Texinfo."

	https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/211

	https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1957

which restricts modification, especially by GNU or other projects which may wish 
to offer and promote alternative doc formats or interfaces.

LDPv2 requires notifying the author of modifications by email if provided, and 
suggested authors could add a generic clause c) prohibiting modifications 
without author consent.

TLDP is now by default under GFDLv1.2+.

Another problematic licence is *JSON*, which contains the clause:

	"The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."

restricting use with non-specific subjective terms, unlike similar licences with 
specific objective restrictions, like not being used for anything related to 
animal testing or nuclear weapons.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis              Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte                   Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter  not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer     but when there is no more to cut
                                 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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[Add Martin Schulze, as he holds copyright of dir_colors.5.]

On 6/29/23 19:01, Brian Inglis wrote:
> On 2023-06-29 10:01, Lameter, Christopher wrote:
>> On Thu, 29 Jun 2023, Lukas Javorsky wrote:
>>>       >> VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
>>>       >>      This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in 
>>> version
>>>       >>      3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:
>>>       >>
>>>       >>              move_pages.2
>>>       >>                      Added by Michael Kerrisk 
>>> <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
>>>       >>                      but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon 
>>> Graphics, Inc.
>>>       >>                                        Christoph Lameter
>>>       >>
>>>       >>      It was later reused in another page:
>> The manpage was written by me and later edited by Michael as far as I 
>> remember.
>>>       >>
>>>       >>              migrate_pages.2
>>>       >>                      Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
>>>       >> .\"                Author: Andi Kleen
>>>       >> .\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
>>>       >> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>>>       >> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
>>>       >>
>>>       >>      This license is the one considered non-free by Fedora, 
>>> and which
>>>       >>      we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so they 
>>> could be
>>>       >>      reasonably rewritten in a worst case.
>> The licensing was GPL and not a proprietary one.
>>>       So, given this, if you give consent to change your pages to use
>>>       Linux-man-pages-copyleft, I'll do so provided for the pages 
>>> that are
>>>       completely yours, and will keep in mind that when others agree, 
>>> I'll also
>>>       change the pages that are shared.
>> I have no objections.
> 
> Updating these licences are really nice to haves for this project.
> 
> Just to be clear, the FSF and Fedora issue is only with *dir_colors*(5) 
> licensed under *LDPv1* which contains the contentious clause:
> 
>      "c) You must not add notes to the Document implying that the reader 
> had better read something produced using Texinfo."
> 
>      https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/211
> 
>      https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1957
> 
> which restricts modification, especially by GNU or other projects which 
> may wish to offer and promote alternative doc formats or interfaces.
> 
> LDPv2 requires notifying the author of modifications by email if 
> provided, and suggested authors could add a generic clause c) 
> prohibiting modifications without author consent.
> 
> TLDP is now by default under GFDLv1.2+.
> 
> Another problematic licence is *JSON*, which contains the clause:
> 
>      "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
> 
> restricting use with non-specific subjective terms, unlike similar 
> licences with specific objective restrictions, like not being used for 
> anything related to animal testing or nuclear weapons.
> 

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5


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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Joey Schulze]

Hi Michael and others!

Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> [Add Martin Schulze, as he holds copyright of dir_colors.5.]
> 
> On 6/29/23 19:01, Brian Inglis wrote:
> > On 2023-06-29 10:01, Lameter, Christopher wrote:
> > > On Thu, 29 Jun 2023, Lukas Javorsky wrote:
> > > >       >> VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
> > > >       >>      This license was first used in the Linux man-pages
> > > > in version
> > > >       >>      3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:
> > > >       >>
> > > >       >>              move_pages.2
> > > >       >>                      Added by Michael Kerrisk
> > > > <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
> > > >       >>                      but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon
> > > > Graphics, Inc.
> > > >       >>                                        Christoph Lameter
> > > >       >>
> > > >       >>      It was later reused in another page:
> > > The manpage was written by me and later edited by Michael as far as
> > > I remember.
> > > >       >>
> > > >       >>              migrate_pages.2
> > > >       >>                      Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
> > > >       >> .\"                Author: Andi Kleen
> > > >       >> .\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
> > > >       >> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> > > >       >> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
> > > >       >>
> > > >       >>      This license is the one considered non-free by
> > > > Fedora, and which
> > > >       >>      we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so
> > > > they could be
> > > >       >>      reasonably rewritten in a worst case.
> > > The licensing was GPL and not a proprietary one.
> > > >       So, given this, if you give consent to change your pages to use
> > > >       Linux-man-pages-copyleft, I'll do so provided for the
> > > > pages that are
> > > >       completely yours, and will keep in mind that when others
> > > > agree, I'll also
> > > >       change the pages that are shared.
> > > I have no objections.
> > 
> > Updating these licences are really nice to haves for this project.
> > 
> > Just to be clear, the FSF and Fedora issue is only with *dir_colors*(5)
> > licensed under *LDPv1* which contains the contentious clause:
> > 
> >      "c) You must not add notes to the Document implying that the reader
> > had better read something produced using Texinfo."
> > 
> >      https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/211
> > 
> >      https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1957
> > 
> > which restricts modification, especially by GNU or other projects which
> > may wish to offer and promote alternative doc formats or interfaces.
> > 
> > LDPv2 requires notifying the author of modifications by email if
> > provided, and suggested authors could add a generic clause c)
> > prohibiting modifications without author consent.
> > 
> > TLDP is now by default under GFDLv1.2+.
> > 
> > Another problematic licence is *JSON*, which contains the clause:
> > 
> >      "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
> > 
> > restricting use with non-specific subjective terms, unlike similar
> > licences with specific objective restrictions, like not being used for
> > anything related to animal testing or nuclear weapons.
> > 
> 
> -- 
> <http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
> GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5
> 

For the record,

I would like to re-license dir_colors(5) under the GPLv2+

Please adjust the manpage source accordingly.

.\" Copyright (c) 2001 Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
.\"
.\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
.\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
.\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
.\" the License, or (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.\" The GNU General Public License's references to "object code"
.\" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any
.\" document formatting or typesetting system, including
.\" intermediate and printed output.
.\"
.\" This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
.\" License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free
.\" Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139,
.\" USA.

This should help keep the manpage free and a version in Fedora.

Regards

	Joey

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct,
not tried it.  -- Donald E. Knuth

Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Joey,

On 2023-07-08 22:14, Joey Schulze wrote:
> Hi Michael and others!
> 

[...]

> 
> For the record,
> 
> I would like to re-license dir_colors(5) under the GPLv2+

Thanks for the very explicit statement, including the entire header
below!

> 
> Please adjust the manpage source accordingly.
> 
> .\" Copyright (c) 2001 Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
> .\"
> .\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
> .\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> .\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
> .\" the License, or (at your option) any later version.
> .\"
> .\" The GNU General Public License's references to "object code"
> .\" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any
> .\" document formatting or typesetting system, including
> .\" intermediate and printed output.
> .\"
> .\" This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
> .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
> .\"
> .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
> .\" License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free
> .\" Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139,
> .\" USA.

We're using SPDX now, so it will be more like this:

.\" Copyright (c) 2001 Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
.\"


I guess that's good to you, right?

> 
> This should help keep the manpage free and a version in Fedora.

Makes sense.  Thank you!

Cheers,
Alex

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Joey Schulze]

Hi Alex!

Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> We're using SPDX now, so it will be more like this:
> 
> .\" Copyright (c) 2001 Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
> .\"
> .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
> .\"
> 
> 
> I guess that's good to you, right?

This is fine with me.

Regards

	Joey

-- 
Unix is user friendly ...  It's just picky about its friends.

Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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On 2023-07-15 21:04, Joey Schulze wrote:
> Hi Alex!
> 
> Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>> We're using SPDX now, so it will be more like this:
>>
>> .\" Copyright (c) 2001 Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
>> .\"
>> .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
>> .\"
>>
>>
>> I guess that's good to you, right?
> 
> This is fine with me.

Great!  I applied that.  So, Jilayne, it seems we got rid of LDPv1 in
the project.  All of our licenses are nice to Fedora now.  I think you
didn't add an identifier for LDPv1, did you?  If you didn't, there's
no need anymore.

Cheers,
Alex

> 
> Regards
> 
> 	Joey
> 

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5


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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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On Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 09:01:11AM -0700, Lameter, Christopher wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2023, Lukas Javorsky wrote:
> 
> >       >> VERBATIM_TWO_PARA
> >       >>      This license was first used in the Linux man-pages in version
> >       >>      3.07 (year 2008) in a single page:
> >       >>
> >       >>              move_pages.2
> >       >>                      Added by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
> >       >>                      but Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> >       >>                                        Christoph Lameter
> >       >>
> >       >>      It was later reused in another page:
> 
> The manpage was written by me and later edited by Michael as far as I
> remember.
> 
> >       >>
> >       >>              migrate_pages.2
> >       >>                      Copyright 2009 Intel Corporation
> >       >> .\"                Author: Andi Kleen
> >       >> .\" Based on the move_pages manpage which was
> >       >> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> >       >> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
> >       >>
> >       >>      This license is the one considered non-free by Fedora, and which
> >       >>      we need to drop.  Luckily it's only two pages, so they could be
> >       >>      reasonably rewritten in a worst case.
> 
> The licensing was GPL and not a proprietary one.
> 
> >       So, given this, if you give consent to change your pages to use
> >       Linux-man-pages-copyleft, I'll do so provided for the pages that are
> >       completely yours, and will keep in mind that when others agree, I'll also
> >       change the pages that are shared.
> 
> I have no objections.

Thanks!  I've relicensed move_pages(2) to Linux-man-pages-copyleft.

Cheers,
Alex

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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On 5/26/23 00:56, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
[...]

> Also, Linux-man-pages-copyleft seems to contain a sentence that
> makes it differ from VERBATIM_PROF:
> 
> """
>   The author(s) may
> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
> professionally.
> """
> 
> I believe the quality of non-professional code and manuals to be
> at least as high as the professional one.  We have more freedom to
> reject crap.  I propose also deprecating Linux-man-pages-copyleft
> and moving to VERBATIM_PROF as the single surviving license from
> all four variants.

I reconsidered.  The non-pro version does actually reflect reality,
as it doesn't say the level of care is less, but just different.
That can --and more often than not does-- mean higher level of care.

So, I prefer Linux-man-pages-copyleft over VERBATIM_PROF.

<https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1959#issuecomment-1564255785>

> 
> We're also discussing the names that each of these four should be
> given in SPDX.
> 
> 
> I suggest (in order of appearance in this email):
> 
> -  Linux-man-pages-copyleft to be renamed to the following, and
>    mark it as a deprecated license.
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-nopro
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (non-professional)

I drop my suggestion of renaming this one (and of deprecating it).

> 
> -  VERBATIM_PROF to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-qual
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (high quality)
> 
> -  VERBATIM_TWO_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-notrans
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (no translations)
> 
> -  VERBATIM_ONE_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-verbatim
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (verbatim)
> 
> 

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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On 5/26/23 13:58, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> On 5/26/23 00:56, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> [...]
> 
>> Also, Linux-man-pages-copyleft seems to contain a sentence that
>> makes it differ from VERBATIM_PROF:
>>
>> """
>>   The author(s) may
>> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
>> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
>> professionally.
>> """
>>
>> I believe the quality of non-professional code and manuals to be
>> at least as high as the professional one.  We have more freedom to
>> reject crap.  I propose also deprecating Linux-man-pages-copyleft
>> and moving to VERBATIM_PROF as the single surviving license from
>> all four variants.
> 
> I reconsidered.  The non-pro version does actually reflect reality,
> as it doesn't say the level of care is less, but just different.
> That can --and more often than not does-- mean higher level of care.
> 
> So, I prefer Linux-man-pages-copyleft over VERBATIM_PROF.
> 
> <https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1959#issuecomment-1564255785>
> 
>>
>> We're also discussing the names that each of these four should be
>> given in SPDX.
>>
>>
>> I suggest (in order of appearance in this email):
>>
>> -  Linux-man-pages-copyleft to be renamed to the following, and
>>    mark it as a deprecated license.
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-nopro
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (non-professional)
> 
> I drop my suggestion of renaming this one (and of deprecating it).
> 
>>
>> -  VERBATIM_PROF to be SPDX'd as:
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-qual
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (high quality)

And suggest using -pro and (professional) for this one.
But the real name in my mind will be -loqual and (lower
quality).  ;)

>>
>> -  VERBATIM_TWO_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-notrans
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (no translations)
>>
>> -  VERBATIM_ONE_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-verbatim
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (verbatim)
>>
>>
> 

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[G. Branden Robinson]

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[mailing only the list, but CCing Alex as I know he doesn't mind]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this.  I have some critiques of
the existing variants and a suggestion for the forms we go back to SPDX
with.  I did also see your follow-ups which confused me a little, and I
fear they might confuse others a bit.  I suggest taking a few days to
shake out some points (it's going to be a holiday weekend in the U.S.
anyway, so some engineers may already be on PTO), and then re-announce
the relicensing effort subsequently.

At 2023-05-26T00:56:47+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> We've got 4 derivatives of the "VERBATIM" (now one of them in SPDX
> as Linux-man-pages-copyleft") license.  I'll paste here the four.
> 
> ===========
> 
> $ cat LICENSES/Linux-man-pages-copyleft.txt 
> Copyright (c) <year> <owner> All rights reserved.
> 
> Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> preserved on all copies.
> 
> Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
> this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
> the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
> a permission notice identical to this one.
> 
> Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
> manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume
> no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting
> from the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may
> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
> professionally.
> 
> Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
> the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
> 
> ===========

The final paragraph may be nearly redundant/superfluous.  (1) Copyright
laws and international treaties forbid the effacement of (valid)
copyright notices anyway, even under transformation ("formatt[ing]" or
"process[ing]").  (2) Man pages are nearly always distributed and stored
on systems in source form anyway.  If systems ship "cat pages" without
their man(7) (or mdoc(7)) sources, they are already in violation not
only of this provision but the aforementioned laws and treaties.

I agree with your point about how amateur work is not necessarily done
more poorly than professional work.  Striking that sentence leads to the
following...

> $ head -n21 man2/set_mempolicy.2
> .\" Copyright 2003,2004 Andi Kleen, SuSE Labs.
> .\" and Copyright 2007 Lee Schermerhorn, Hewlett Packard
> .\"
> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_PROF)
> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> .\" preserved on all copies.
> .\"
> .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
> .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
> .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
> .\" permission notice identical to this one.
> .\"
> .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
> .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
> .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
> .\" the use of the information contained herein.
> .\"
> .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
> .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
> .\" %%%LICENSE_END

With the next license, things get murkier.

> ===========
> 
> $ head -n8 man2/getcpu.2
> .\" This man page is Copyright (C) 2006 Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>.
> .\"
> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_ONE_PARA)
> .\" Permission is granted to distribute possibly modified copies
> .\" of this page provided the header is included verbatim,
> .\" and in case of nontrivial modification author and date
> .\" of the modification is added to the header.
> .\" %%%LICENSE_END

It is not clear to me how this one is defective in not permitting
translations, but the others aren't.  Do we know who from the Fedora
Project made that determination?

If we then look at the 4th license, things get cleaner.

> $ head -n13 man2/move_pages.2
> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
> .\"
> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_TWO_PARA)
> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> .\" preserved on all copies.
> .\"
> .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
> .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
> .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
> .\" permission notice identical to this one.
> .\" %%%LICENSE_END

This is the same as the first license we saw above with the last 2
paragraphs removed--the one expressing a kind of disclaimer, and the one
that I claimed is redundant/superfluous.

I see from your follow-up email that _this_ is the one Fedora claimed to
have a Freeness problem with.  Can we scare up a cite for which one,
exactly, they were referring to?  The concern their determination causes
me is that _none_ of the four license you present here explicitly grant
permission to translate.

The LaTeX 2e/"traditional GNU documentation license", from which all of
these license texts seem to be derived, solved the translation problem
with an explicit grant of permission.

>> Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
>> manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
>> versions.

And in fact if you add the foregoing paragraph to "VERBATIM_TWO_PARA",
you get _precisely_ what SPDX calls the "Latex2e license".

https://spdx.org/licenses/Latex2e.html

> Here goes some comments about them:
> 
> The one and two paragraph licenses are almost identical to the usual
> one.  There seems to be a small diference regarding translations in
> the 2-paragraph one, being more restrictive.  Was that intentional?
> Or maybe it was just an accident, and there was no intention of
> disallowing translations?
> 
> Would you please relicense to either Linux-man-pages-copyleft or
> VERBATIM_PROF?

If you agree, I would add LaTeX 2e to the list of acceptable candidates.

> Also, Linux-man-pages-copyleft seems to contain a sentence that
> makes it differ from VERBATIM_PROF:
> 
> """
>   The author(s) may
> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
> professionally.
> """
> 
> I believe the quality of non-professional code and manuals to be
> at least as high as the professional one.  We have more freedom to
> reject crap.  I propose also deprecating Linux-man-pages-copyleft
> and moving to VERBATIM_PROF as the single surviving license from
> all four variants.

I'd go farther and move to LaTeX 2e.

> We're also discussing the names that each of these four should be
> given in SPDX.

Is that necessary, if you successfully migrate away from these to texts
that are already in SPDX, like LaTeX 2e and the existing Linux man-pages
copyleft?  I realize SPDX wants to capture many licenses for SWBOM
purposes, but if this transition is successful, the foregoing task will
rapidly become a problem of history.  And historical software
distributions have far worse description problems, such as (1) unknown
provenance, (2) missing copyright/licensing information, and (3)
incorrect copyright/licensing information.  (To an extent, all three of
these problems will continue to arise from time to time.)

> I suggest (in order of appearance in this email):
> 
> -  Linux-man-pages-copyleft to be renamed to the following, and
>    mark it as a deprecated license.
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-nopro
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (non-professional)

I thought SPDX didn't support renames at all...?

But if they do, I suggest disambiguation tags that are more descriptive
rather than trying to capture catchwords that distinguish them.

	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-care-disclaimer
	Linux man-pages Copyleft (with care disclaimer)

> -  VERBATIM_PROF to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-qual
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (high quality)

...but now the license text makes no mention of the Linux kernel at all.
It is just the LaTeX 2e license without its final paragraph, the one
granting permission to distribute translations of the manual.

...which then leaves us in an awkward position regarding Fedora's
determination that VERBATIM_ONE_PARA had this problem.

And I wouldn't put a term like "high quality" (or "low quality") in a
license identifier under any circumstances.

> -  VERBATIM_TWO_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-notrans
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (no translations)

...this, too, says nothing of Linux to distinguish it from LaTeX 2e.

It is the LaTeX 2e license missing its latter two paragraphs.

> -  VERBATIM_ONE_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-verbatim
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (verbatim)

This one doesn't mention "Linux" but is pretty idiosyncratically worded
("this page").  And Fedora had the aforementioned problem wherein they
claimed to be unable to locate permission to translate here.

You have already identified it as defective in its grant of permissions,
and it affects only 2 documents in the Linux man-pages.

Can we try to slate this one for the chopping block, and just not take
it back to SPDX at all?

Regards,
Branden

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Branden,

On 5/26/23 15:15, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> [mailing only the list, but CCing Alex as I know he doesn't mind]
> 
> Hi Alex,
> 
> Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this.  I have some critiques of
> the existing variants and a suggestion for the forms we go back to SPDX
> with.  I did also see your follow-ups which confused me a little, and I
> fear they might confuse others a bit.  I suggest taking a few days to
> shake out some points (it's going to be a holiday weekend in the U.S.
> anyway, so some engineers may already be on PTO), and then re-announce
> the relicensing effort subsequently.

I'll go on trip around Europe for a couple of weeks starting this weekend,
so I'll be relatively quiet for some time.  :)

> 
> At 2023-05-26T00:56:47+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>> We've got 4 derivatives of the "VERBATIM" (now one of them in SPDX
>> as Linux-man-pages-copyleft") license.  I'll paste here the four.
>>
>> ===========
>>
>> $ cat LICENSES/Linux-man-pages-copyleft.txt 
>> Copyright (c) <year> <owner> All rights reserved.
>>
>> Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
>> manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
>> preserved on all copies.
>>
>> Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
>> this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
>> the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of
>> a permission notice identical to this one.
>>
>> Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
>> manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume
>> no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting
>> from the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may
>> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
>> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
>> professionally.
>>
>> Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
>> the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
>>
>> ===========
> 
> The final paragraph may be nearly redundant/superfluous.  (1) Copyright
> laws and international treaties forbid the effacement of (valid)
> copyright notices anyway, even under transformation ("formatt[ing]" or
> "process[ing]").  (2) Man pages are nearly always distributed and stored
> on systems in source form anyway.  If systems ship "cat pages" without
> their man(7) (or mdoc(7)) sources, they are already in violation not
> only of this provision but the aforementioned laws and treaties.
> 
> I agree with your point about how amateur work is not necessarily done
> more poorly than professional work.  Striking that sentence leads to the
> following...
> 
>> $ head -n21 man2/set_mempolicy.2
>> .\" Copyright 2003,2004 Andi Kleen, SuSE Labs.
>> .\" and Copyright 2007 Lee Schermerhorn, Hewlett Packard
>> .\"
>> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_PROF)
>> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
>> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
>> .\" preserved on all copies.
>> .\"
>> .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
>> .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
>> .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
>> .\" permission notice identical to this one.
>> .\"
>> .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
>> .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
>> .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
>> .\" the use of the information contained herein.
>> .\"
>> .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
>> .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
>> .\" %%%LICENSE_END
> 
> With the next license, things get murkier.
> 
>> ===========
>>

[...]

> 
>> $ head -n13 man2/move_pages.2
>> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>> .\"                               Christoph Lameter
>> .\"
>> .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM_TWO_PARA)
>> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
>> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
>> .\" preserved on all copies.
>> .\"
>> .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
>> .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
>> .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
>> .\" permission notice identical to this one.
>> .\" %%%LICENSE_END
> 
> This is the same as the first license we saw above with the last 2
> paragraphs removed--the one expressing a kind of disclaimer, and the one
> that I claimed is redundant/superfluous.
> 
> I see from your follow-up email that _this_ is the one Fedora claimed to
> have a Freeness problem with.  Can we scare up a cite for which one,
> exactly, they were referring to?  The concern their determination causes
> me is that _none_ of the four license you present here explicitly grant
> permission to translate.

Sorry, I was already confused with so many threads.  So, there's one more
license, not derived from these, but which seems related to GPL.  It's
the LDP (v1) license.  That's the one that was rejected by Fedora:

<https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/211>

The reason was the prohibition to recommend an info manual.

I confused that thread, with the one about VERBATIM_TWO_PARA, in which
you accused it of also being non-free.

<https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1947#issuecomment-1554695533>

> 
> The LaTeX 2e/"traditional GNU documentation license", from which all of
> these license texts seem to be derived, solved the translation problem
> with an explicit grant of permission.
> 
>>> Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
>>> manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
>>> versions.
> 
> And in fact if you add the foregoing paragraph to "VERBATIM_TWO_PARA",
> you get _precisely_ what SPDX calls the "Latex2e license".
> 
> https://spdx.org/licenses/Latex2e.html

[...]

>> Would you please relicense to either Linux-man-pages-copyleft or
>> VERBATIM_PROF?
> 
> If you agree, I would add LaTeX 2e to the list of acceptable candidates.
> 
>> Also, Linux-man-pages-copyleft seems to contain a sentence that
>> makes it differ from VERBATIM_PROF:
>>
>> """
>>   The author(s) may
>> not have taken the same level of care in the production of this
>> manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
>> professionally.
>> """
>>
>> I believe the quality of non-professional code and manuals to be
>> at least as high as the professional one.  We have more freedom to
>> reject crap.  I propose also deprecating Linux-man-pages-copyleft
>> and moving to VERBATIM_PROF as the single surviving license from
>> all four variants.
> 
> I'd go farther and move to LaTeX 2e.
> 
>> We're also discussing the names that each of these four should be
>> given in SPDX.
> 
> Is that necessary, if you successfully migrate away from these to texts
> that are already in SPDX, like LaTeX 2e and the existing Linux man-pages
> copyleft?  I realize SPDX wants to capture many licenses for SWBOM
> purposes, but if this transition is successful, the foregoing task will
> rapidly become a problem of history.  And historical software
> distributions have far worse description problems, such as (1) unknown
> provenance, (2) missing copyright/licensing information, and (3)
> incorrect copyright/licensing information.  (To an extent, all three of
> these problems will continue to arise from time to time.)
> 
>> I suggest (in order of appearance in this email):
>>
>> -  Linux-man-pages-copyleft to be renamed to the following, and
>>    mark it as a deprecated license.
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-nopro
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (non-professional)
> 
> I thought SPDX didn't support renames at all...?

They renamed GPL-2.0 to GPL-2.0-only, AFAIK.

> 
> But if they do, I suggest disambiguation tags that are more descriptive
> rather than trying to capture catchwords that distinguish them.
> 
> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-care-disclaimer
> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (with care disclaimer)

Sounds good for VERBATIM_PROF.

[...]

> And I wouldn't put a term like "high quality" (or "low quality") in a
> license identifier under any circumstances.

Agree.

> 
>> -  VERBATIM_TWO_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-notrans
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (no translations)
> 
> ...this, too, says nothing of Linux to distinguish it from LaTeX 2e.
> 
> It is the LaTeX 2e license missing its latter two paragraphs.
> 
>> -  VERBATIM_ONE_PARA to be SPDX'd as:
>>
>> 	Linux-man-pages-copyleft-verbatim
>> 	Linux man-pages Copyleft (verbatim)
> 
> This one doesn't mention "Linux" but is pretty idiosyncratically worded
> ("this page").  And Fedora had the aforementioned problem wherein they
> claimed to be unable to locate permission to translate here.
> 
> You have already identified it as defective in its grant of permissions,
> and it affects only 2 documents in the Linux man-pages.
> 
> Can we try to slate this one for the chopping block, and just not take
> it back to SPDX at all?

Sure.  Hopefully we can remove some.  I'll already relicense the ones
owned by Alan.

Cheers,
Alex

> 
> Regards,
> Branden

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2023-05-26T16:10:47+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> On 5/26/23 15:15, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > I suggest taking a few days to shake out some points (it's going to
> > be a holiday weekend in the U.S.  anyway, so some engineers may
> > already be on PTO), and then re-announce the relicensing effort
> > subsequently.
> 
> I'll go on trip around Europe for a couple of weeks starting this
> weekend, so I'll be relatively quiet for some time.  :)

I'm sure you can guess what I hope is released by the time you return.

> > I see from your follow-up email that _this_ is the one Fedora
> > claimed to have a Freeness problem with.  Can we scare up a cite for
> > which one, exactly, they were referring to?  The concern their
> > determination causes me is that _none_ of the four license you
> > present here explicitly grant permission to translate.
> 
> Sorry, I was already confused with so many threads.  So, there's one
> more license, not derived from these, but which seems related to GPL.
> It's the LDP (v1) license.  That's the one that was rejected by
> Fedora:
> 
> <https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/211>
> 
> The reason was the prohibition to recommend an info manual.

Ahhh.  Here it is.

>> You may modify your copy or copies of the Document or any portion of
>> it, thus forming a work based on the Document, and copy and
>> distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
>> above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: [. . .]
>> c) You must not add notes to the Document implying that the reader
>> had better read something produced using Texinfo.

Hah!  That's actually funny to me (and maybe to anyone who's shared a
discussion thread with Eli Zaretskii).  But I don't think it belongs in
a license.

> I confused that thread, with the one about VERBATIM_TWO_PARA, in which
> you accused it of also being non-free.
> 
> <https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1947#issuecomment-1554695533>

Well, hang on--I was extrapolating from inadequate information.  I said
I didn't _know_ if permission to modify implied permission to translate,
though I have reason to fear it doesn't, and I dropped the IANAL and
TINLA disclaimers to cover my rear.  SPDX has real copyright lawyers.
Let them opine.

If the Fedora Project doesn't have a problem with the LaTeX
2e/"traditional GNU documentation" license missing its translation
permission paragraph, then I do not propose that they acquire such a
problem.

But I think if we're going to go to the trouble of a relicensing push,
we might as well employ all four clauses of LaTeX 2e/tGdl while we're at
it.

> They renamed GPL-2.0 to GPL-2.0-only, AFAIK.

Ah.  That seems likely to have been of much higher impact.

Regards,
Branden

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Re: SPDX license review requests

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Branden,

On 5/26/23 16:37, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2023-05-26T16:10:47+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>> On 5/26/23 15:15, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
>>> I suggest taking a few days to shake out some points (it's going to
>>> be a holiday weekend in the U.S.  anyway, so some engineers may
>>> already be on PTO), and then re-announce the relicensing effort
>>> subsequently.
>>
>> I'll go on trip around Europe for a couple of weeks starting this
>> weekend, so I'll be relatively quiet for some time.  :)
> 
> I'm sure you can guess what I hope is released by the time you return.

I won't hold my breath ;')

> 
>>> I see from your follow-up email that _this_ is the one Fedora
>>> claimed to have a Freeness problem with.  Can we scare up a cite for
>>> which one, exactly, they were referring to?  The concern their
>>> determination causes me is that _none_ of the four license you
>>> present here explicitly grant permission to translate.
>>
>> Sorry, I was already confused with so many threads.  So, there's one
>> more license, not derived from these, but which seems related to GPL.
>> It's the LDP (v1) license.  That's the one that was rejected by
>> Fedora:
>>
>> <https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/211>
>>
>> The reason was the prohibition to recommend an info manual.
> 
> Ahhh.  Here it is.
> 
>>> You may modify your copy or copies of the Document or any portion of
>>> it, thus forming a work based on the Document, and copy and
>>> distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
>>> above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: [. . .]
>>> c) You must not add notes to the Document implying that the reader
>>> had better read something produced using Texinfo.
> 
> Hah!  That's actually funny to me (and maybe to anyone who's shared a
> discussion thread with Eli Zaretskii).

It definitely is :D

>  But I don't think it belongs in
> a license.

I actually believe jokes belong to licenses.  Otherwise they'd be very
boring to read, and nobody would read them.  I'm joking, but a lot of
truth is said in jest.

> 
>> I confused that thread, with the one about VERBATIM_TWO_PARA, in which
>> you accused it of also being non-free.
>>
>> <https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1947#issuecomment-1554695533>
> 
> Well, hang on--I was extrapolating from inadequate information.  I said
> I didn't _know_ if permission to modify implied permission to translate,
> though I have reason to fear it doesn't, and I dropped the IANAL and
> TINLA disclaimers to cover my rear.  SPDX has real copyright lawyers.
> Let them opine.

I don't have much faith in that.  I asked them for advice when switching
to SPDX tags in the project, and didn't get any.

> 
> If the Fedora Project doesn't have a problem with the LaTeX
> 2e/"traditional GNU documentation" license missing its translation
> permission paragraph, then I do not propose that they acquire such a
> problem.

Makes sense.

> 
> But I think if we're going to go to the trouble of a relicensing push,
> we might as well employ all four clauses of LaTeX 2e/tGdl while we're at
> it.

Latex2e only has 3 paragraphs (and each seems to be a clause).

<https://spdx.org/licenses/Latex2e.html>

I think Linux-man-pages-copyleft is fine, and both mtk and aeb seemed to
want to prefer that license for the project.  Jumping to another one
would be very difficult, as we'd need to get the authors of thousands of
pages to an explicit agreement, which I find unlikely to happen.
Jumping to Linux-man-pages-copyleft from other VERBATIM_* variants will
be easier, since there are very few VERBATIM_*-licensed pages.  One less
since today (yesterday, local time).

And Latex2e doesn't have any disclaimers about damages and other stuff.
I don't know if those are implied by the software being FOSS, but it's
probably safer to keep it.

BTW, I just found that there's a "GNU Free Documentation License" (with
many versions and variations), and they don't seem related to Latex2e,
but rather one of those GNU licenses that could be confused with a book.
They use the identifiers of the form GFDL-*.  E.g.:
<https://spdx.org/licenses/GFDL-1.1-invariants-only.html>

I'm not implying they are bad, and I like GPL, but I never really could
read it entirely in one sit.

> 
>> They renamed GPL-2.0 to GPL-2.0-only, AFAIK.
> 
> Ah.  That seems likely to have been of much higher impact.

<https://spdx.org/licenses/#deprecated>

Cheers,
Alex

> 
> Regards,
> Branden

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5

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