SPDX identifiers (was: [macports-ports] branch master updated: libcaer: new port)

[Leonardo Brondani Schenkel]

On 2018-03-01 14:48, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> +license             BSD-2-Clause
> 
> MacPorts doesn't know that license by that name; we call this license "BSD". It's important to use the correct license name so that MacPorts can distribute binaries of ports that are distributable. Changing the license after a successful build does not currently cause the buildbot to reexamine the port to distribute binaries that didn't get distributed before, so it's important to get the license correct the first time. The list of licenses we currently use is documented here:
> 
> https://trac.macports.org/wiki/PortfileRecipes#licensekeyword

I think that we should consider using SPDX license identifiers [1] in 
the ports. It was deliberately made to make it easier to track 
compliance, as it is the use case here. They're very precise and they're 
being adopted by quite a lot of projects nowadays, for example the Linux 
kernel [2].

[1] https://spdx.org/licenses/
[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/739183/

If we use the same vocabulary as everybody else has many benefits, I 
think, among them is the fact it refrains the project from having to 
maintain its own list, removes ambiguity and it is also easier for 
contributors, so they can use the same identifiers they're used to.

In case we want to do that, we could treat our own list as "legacy" 
identifiers: ports are encouraged to use SPDX license identifiers, but 
the old keywords are also accepted for compatibility.

// Leonardo.