License option

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 9, 2010, at 13:14, nox wrote:

> I see a lot of ports with license options like "GPLv2/LGPLv2". The "v" and "/" seem ugly to me, especially with licenses like Apache, where we end up with "Apachev2". Shouldn't we write something more beautiful like:
> 
> license     LGPL-2 Apache-2 MIT BSD DWTFYWL-42

The "v" in the licenses has slightly bugged me. Using a "-" instead would improve readability.

Using "/" to separate multiple licenses is probably incorrect. This is a normal MacPorts field, which means it can be treated as a list/array and appended to or deleted from using license-append and license-delete. In some ports that combine software from multiple sources, it might even be necessary to modify the license field in a variant; I'm thinking of ffmpeg here. As such, multiple values should be separated by spaces, not slashes, as for any other MacPorts field.

license GPL-2 LGPL-2.1


One other comment that wasn't mentioned yet in this thread: Some licenses have been specified using a "+", e.g. "GPLv2+". I don't feel this is necessary. The terms of the GPL state that any later version may be used. So no additional information is conveyed by putting the "+" into the license field. Anybody familiar with the GPL knows any later version is acceptable, and anybody unfamiliar but looking to comply with the license will be reading its text anyway and will learn this. I move to remove "+" from the license fields. (Or, add it everywhere it applies. We just need to be consistent.)