[tex-live] cataloguing licenses

[Frank Küster]

Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> (a) i've ignored the supposed syntax/semantics of that entry; is anyone
> ever going to auto-process it?  

I don't think so.

> (b) i've asked jim to add a "notes" field (or tag or whatever these
> things are called) to the licence entry in the catalogue dtd, so that we
> _can_ record the details of the deduction

Fine.

> (c) at karl's request, i've added a "noinfo" licence category; 

Good! I would appreciate some clear-text documentation on this. I'll
have a look at the source files (the DTD or however this is called, my
checkout of the catalogue is helplessly outdated, so I won't check until
it's up-to-date again), but I doubt I'm the right person to parse
this... 

> widnoze people have tortoise svn, which all our secretaries at work deal
> with quite happily (we do the lab website this way); i don't know how
> these things are dealt with on macs.
>
[...]
>> Hm, yes. A Wiki? 
>
> maybe, but even so i've got to transcribe all my scribble-files.
[...]
> however, setting up a wiki that would survive me retiring (nominal 2014,
> unless i get retired for ill-health), would be more tricky...

So, should we stay with SVN, maybe adding a special README for license
auditing, where you can add your scribble notes? 

> on another matter, what would you recommend about things that _say_
> they're gpl, or whatever, but don't fulfill any of the trivial
> requirments (like a copyright statement).  my reaction is to scream
> quietly at the author, and to take the statement at its word.  but is
> the statement actually valid?

In my experience, it's unfortunately very common that people want GPL
and say something is GPL, but don't bother to read the text to the end
and act according to the "How to apply..." section.  We should ask (and
try to educate) people, but if we were strict here...

in dubio pro auctore (vel pro re molle)

Regards, Frank

-- 
Frank Küster
Debian Developer (TeXLive)
ADFC Miltenberg
B90/Grüne KV Miltenberg