[55459] trunk/doc-new/guide/xml/portfiledev.xml

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 11, 2009, at 01:13, snc at macports.org wrote:

> Revision: 55459
>           http://trac.macports.org/changeset/55459
> Author:   snc at macports.org
> Date:     2009-08-10 23:13:17 -0700 (Mon, 10 Aug 2009)
> Log Message:
> -----------
> add basic ideas for licenses -- keep commented out until such  
> policy is formed
>
> Modified Paths:
> --------------
>     trunk/doc-new/guide/xml/portfiledev.xml


> +          <para>Port license</para>
> +
> +        <para>A port's license indicates the class of license  
> employed by the
> +        owner. Setting this signals the main intentions of the  
> license with
> +        respect to binary and source distribution. It is presently  
> only for
> +        informational purposes and MacPorts does not distribute  
> binaries.</para>

Since MacPorts doesn't distribute binaries, and won't for a long time  
(unless someone suddenly writes a lot of code), I would omit all  
reference to it, in this introduction here and in license  
descriptions below.


> +            <para><varname>GPL</varname> – signifies the  
> requirements of GNU
> +            General Public    License; the source be available in  
> the same place
> +            as the binary.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>LGPL</varname> – use this for the GNU  
> Lesser General
> +            Public License,    which mandates that    the source  
> and binary are
> +            available in the same place.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>BSD</varname> – covering the original  
> and new BSD
> +            license as well as MIT and Apache; these licenses  
> allow for optional
> +            inclusion of source code.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>Artistic</varname> – aptly named to  
> indicate the
> +            Artistic license and derivatives.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>Artistic-GPL</varname> – dual-licensed  
> under the
> +            Artistic and GPL licenses.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>/GFDL</varname> and <varname>/LDP</ 
> varname> – these
> +            suffixes indicate that the documentation provided is  
> under the GNU
> +            Free Documentation License or the Linux Documentation  
> Project</para>

Wouldn't you want to list the actual license? If the project is  
licensed under the MIT license, I would have thought the keyword  
would read "MIT", not "BSD".

It might also be better to just link to the canonical version of each  
license, rather than try to summarize each one.


> +            <para><varname>RESTRICT</varname> – when the licenses are
> +            restrictive.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>RESTRICT-EYESONLY</varname> – if the  
> license does not
> +            permit distribution.</para>
> +
> +            <para><varname>PUBLIC</varname> – the code is not  
> copyrighted:
> +            anyone can do anything</para>

I don't think these need to be in all caps. The others only are  
because they're acronyms.

For "restrict", restrictive how? For "restrict-eyesonly",  
distribution of what?