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fsfe / reuse-docs

REUSE recommendations, tutorials, FAQ and specification
https://reuse.software
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provide definition of "license" #89

Closed zvr closed 2 years ago

zvr commented 2 years ago

The specification has as a cornerstone statement:

A Project MUST include a License File for every license under which files in the Project are licensed. (emphasis added)

However, files are licensed under License Expressions, not single licenses. For example, if a file is under BSD-3-Clause AND GPL-2.0-or-later, the desired outcome should be that there are files for each of the component parts BSD-3-Clause.txt and GPL-2.0-or-later.txt and not a single one.

Even more so if the expression is of the form License WITH Exception.

Somehow this must be cleared up.

silverhook commented 2 years ago

I’m not sure it’s needed. Files are licensed under licenses (note the lack of capitalisation, so this is a common term, not a defined term within REUSE or SPDX specs). SPDX License Expressions are just a very convenient way to unambiguously and in a short way express which licenses the files are licensed under.

That being said, if the wording causes confusion, it might make sense to clarify better. But since (IMHO) the current state works as intended, the change (again IMHO) should be a very clear improvement in clarity. Else it is better to keep it as is.

I’ll try to think of something today.

silverhook commented 2 years ago

@zvr, does #96 address your concerns?

zvr commented 2 years ago

Yes, thanks!

zvr commented 2 years ago

I will not raise the "one license == one file" topic now ;-)

silverhook commented 2 years ago

Because it’s fixed, or because you’re kind to us? ;)