Re: [OE-core] [oe] INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSES and WHITELIST_<license> usage

[Richard Purdie <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Fri, 2022-02-18 at 14:13 +0000, Richard Purdie via lists.openembedded.org
wrote:
> On Thu, 2022-02-17 at 15:01 -0800, Saul Wold wrote:
> > I am working on a proposal to re-write how INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSES is used 
> > and processed to possibly include a COMPATIBLE_LICENSES variable as 
> > well, see PeterK's email [0]
> > 
> > I am trying to determine the usage of WHITELIST_<license> which would be 
> > used to override a license that might be listed in INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSES 
> > variable.
> > 
> > Randy and I have done a quick and dirty survey of a 100 or so layers 
> > (thanks Randy) and could not find any real usage other than what's 
> > currently in OE-Core for WHITELIST_GPL-3.0.
> > 
> > If you are using WHITELIST_<license>, please let me reply with your usage.
> > 
> > 
> > [0] https://lists.openembedded.org/g/openembedded-devel/message/95166
> 
> We need to be mindful that we need to resolve this to unblock the other language
> changes and feature creep here is potentially problematic. I do think it is
> worth trying to improve things rather than blindly allowing the horrible syntax
> in this variable to continue though.
> 
> The test case we have for this currently is:
> 
> WHITELIST_GPL-3.0:pn-core-image-minimal = "bash"
> 
> so I'd wondered about an alternative of:
> 
> INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE_EXCEPTIONS:pn-core-image-minimal = "bash:GPL-3.0"
> 
> which matches the current functionality, removes the issue that the name of the
> variable is unknown without iterating every possible license name and makes it
> clear where it is applying to.
> 
> I don't really like INCOMPATIBLE_LICENSE_ALLOWED_RECIPES since:
> 
> a) it is long
> b) it refers to recipes when it works against packages

Just as a warning, the code is actually confused. The base.bbclass code assumes
it is a recipe name, the license_image code assumes it is a package name.

All the more reason to come up with a standard and resolve this. My proposal
stands but we need to decide if it is a recipe or package name that is listed
(or both?).

Cheers,

Richard