Many thanks. This proposed course of action makes sense to me. <div>I think establishing such identifiers would be helpful for the community and a small but good addition to OSI's offering. <div><br><div><div>-mathieu<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 22:41, Karl Fogel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kfogel@red-bean.com">kfogel@red-bean.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">"Mathieu Gervais (IDEAS)" <<a href="mailto:Mathieu.Gervais@morganstanley.com">Mathieu.Gervais@morganstanley.com</a>> writes:<br>
>Right. I was hoping OSI would just seed with the initial SPDX list..<br>
>and then take it from there (and then SPDX have the wisdom to leverage<br>
>whatever addition OSI did so there is no fork).<br>
>Maybe I'm dreaming :)<br>
>Do you know where I should ask?<br>
<br>
</div>You're asking in the right place, at least for OSI. Here's what I'd<br>
like to do:<br>
<br>
1) For every license for which there is a SPDX identifier, make sure<br>
that <a href="http://opensource.org/licenses/IDENTIFIER" target="_blank">http://opensource.org/licenses/IDENTIFIER</a> exists and is<br>
canonical (i.e., does not redirect). In some cases, we will need<br>
to redirect existing pages to the new page, of course.<br>
<br>
2) For any OSI-approved license for which there is no SPDX identifier,<br>
create one using the same algorithm SPDX used. Also, at least try<br>
to contact them and get them to sign off on the acronym choice :-).<br>
<br>
Regarding (1), my only caveat is that I don't yet know if OSI considers<br>
some of its abbreviations to be canonical -- i.e., shouldn't redirect.<br>
Does anyone here know the answer to that?<br>
<br>
(Descriptions of licenses would, of course, also reference the canonical<br>
abbreviation, and distinguish it from colloquial abbrevations -- though<br>
should list them all, being a primary reference.)<br>
<br>
Assuming there's no reason *not* to be in sync, then SPDX and OSI should<br>
stay in sync. But it would be premature to commit to this until we<br>
actually have that conversation. I'll try to start that conversation<br>
(or maybe there already is one, in which case I'll try to find it :-) ).<br>
<br>
There's no reason any of this needs to bottleneck OSI's license approval<br>
process. Approving a license need not be simultaneous with establishing<br>
a canonical abbreviation for it, although in practice they probably can<br>
be (and ideally would be) simultaneous.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
-Karl<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
>On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:30, David Dillard<br>
><<a href="mailto:david_dillard@symantec.com">david_dillard@symantec.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
><br>
> Actually, you’d still have a problem. When the OSI approved a<br>
> new license that license would not have an identifier until the<br>
> SPDX group gave it one unless there was an agreement that the OSI<br>
> would create identifiers that SPDX would use and assuming OSI was<br>
> willing to take on that task.<br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> I’m somewhat skeptical that either organization would agree to<br>
> something like that, but it doesn’t hurt to ask :-)<br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> From: Mathieu Gervais (IDEAS)<br>
> [mailto:<a href="mailto:Mathieu.Gervais@morganstanley.com">Mathieu.Gervais@morganstanley.com</a>]<br>
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 12:17 PM<br>
> To: David Dillard<br>
> Cc: <a href="mailto:license-discuss@opensource.org">license-discuss@opensource.org</a><br>
> Subject: Re: Unique identifier for licenses<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> Many thanks for the reply. That's an interesting suggestion.<br>
> On the other hand, I'm a bit worried that these short form names<br>
> don't appear anywhere on <a href="http://opensource.org" target="_blank">opensource.org</a>.<br>
> Any chances OSI could add them to<br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical</a> ? i.e. after the<br>
> license name, have "(short-form = XXX)"<br>
> That would eliminate the reliance on another party that might<br>
> diverge or just not be updated when there is a license added by<br>
> OSI.<br>
> I know this creates an admin burden, but given these guys seems to<br>
> have done most of the legwork, I think it would actually be a<br>
> worthy addition to OSI's offering (small, but with value).<br>
> (should I send this request to another particular group? I'm<br>
> hoping OSI folks are reading this list...)<br>
><br>
> Thanks,<br>
><br>
> -mathieu<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:09, David Dillard<br>
> <<a href="mailto:david_dillard@symantec.com">david_dillard@symantec.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
><br>
> You might try using the short form identifiers for licenses as<br>
> found in the SPDX spec (see Appendix I).<br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> <a href="http://spdx.org/system/files/spdx-v1beta.draft20100807_1.pdf" target="_blank">http://spdx.org/system/files/spdx-v1beta.draft20100807_1.pdf</a><br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> From: Mathieu Gervais (IDEAS)<br>
> [mailto:<a href="mailto:Mathieu.Gervais@morganstanley.com">Mathieu.Gervais@morganstanley.com</a>]<br>
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 9:14 AM<br>
> To: <a href="mailto:license-discuss@opensource.org">license-discuss@opensource.org</a><br>
> Subject: Unique identifier for licenses<br>
><br>
><br>
> <br>
><br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
> We are improving internal tooling to keep track of open source<br>
> libraries licenses.<br>
> What do you recommend in order to uniquely identify licenses?<br>
><br>
> We want to leverage OSI's catalogue of licenses in order to not<br>
> reinvent the wheel, but it doesn't look like a slam dunk since the<br>
> naming is not that consistent.<br>
> For example, for BSD the name seen on these 2 pages is different:<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical</a><br>
><br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license</a><br>
> (I prefer the one on the alphabetical list, since it does hint<br>
> which flavor of BSD we are talking about -- "new and simplified").<br>
><br>
> So the question is, what would be the best/recommended (short)<br>
> identifier that is likely to stay stable?<br>
> I see the following choices:<br>
> a) name as listed on <br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical</a><br>
> b) name as listed on the license page itself: e.g.<br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license</a><br>
><br>
> ( this seems a non starter given that not all page have the<br>
> same format, some of them have the license name written as "Open<br>
> Source Initiative OSI - license name:Licensing" (see bsd), some<br>
> have just the license name (e.g. AGPL)<br>
><br>
> c)use the short name in the url of the license itself, i.e.:<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license</a> => use<br>
> license name="bsd-license"<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license</a> => use<br>
> license name="mit-license"<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0" target="_blank">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0</a> => use license<br>
> name="gpl-2.0"<br>
><br>
><br>
> Although we could use full URLs, I'd prefer using a short,<br>
> meaningful name. (the full URL would really amount to option c<br>
> anyway).<br>
><br>
> I'm not going to hold it against you if this ever changes, but I'd<br>
> like to know that I at least have a shot at using something that<br>
> is likely to be relatively stable for the foreseeable future.<br>
> It also seems to me adding this to the FAQ could make sense since<br>
> I'm certainly not the only one trying to refer to licenses in your<br>
> catalogue.<br>
><br>
> I understand this is a bit nitpicking, but since we are doing<br>
> this, we might as well try to do it right.<br>
><br>
> Let me know if my question is not clear and thanks in advance for<br>
> your help.<br>
><br>
> -mathieu<br>
><br>
> PS: ultimately we do store and refer to the actual license txt<br>
> included in the distribution of each library, but this is for the<br>
> purpose of categorization in our internal repository.<br>
><br>
> <br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div>