Licence unspecified?

[Joshua Root]

On 2013-12-10 22:39 , Peter Danecek wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> I am authoring a python port where the license is not specified and I am wondering how to deal with this.
> 
> I saw mentioning of `License: unknown` in some examples so I would guess this is the correct keyword to put. 
> 
> Is it the default as well? 
> Should it be than left out (because it is the default)?

"license unknown" means nobody has set the license for that port yet.
The license option didn't exist for a long time, so older ports are
often in this situation. New ports should have a license specified.

> I guess, it makes sense to provide this info explicitly, because it was looked up and no explicit statement from the author(s) on the licence could be found, which is different from the situation where the port author omits this info.

No license at all is bad because it means that regular copyright
applies, meaning nobody but the copyright holder is allowed to make
copies. Among other things this means we're not even allowed to mirror
the source, which happens automatically unless the port is added to a
list of exclusions. (End users downloading it directly from a place the
author has made it available is OK, as making it publicly available
implies giving the public permission to download.)

The best course is to contact the author and get a license statement
from them. If this is impossible and you really need to add the port
anyway, put "license none" and contact Shree or Bill to get it added to
the mirror exclusions before you commit.

- Josh