Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Gitea assessment: C5

[Ian Jackson]

David Seaward writes ("Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] Gitea assessment: C5"):
> Hi,
> > Regarding C5 (Recommends and encourages GPL 3-or-later licensing
> > at least as much as any other kind of licensing), when creating a
> > new repo...
> 
> Just to follow up on this. I couldn't find a more definitive definition
> of the C5 criteria. Am I missing something? (This is the last
> outstanding issue in this evaluation so I'm keen to resolve it.)
> 
> Potential issues are 1) license choice is empty-by-default (but all
> licenses listed equally)

The question is, is "no licence" a "kind of licensing", for the
purposes of this criterion ?

If it is, then the situation you describe is not compliant, obviously,
since "no licence" is preferred.

If not then the blank default is complaint, provided that GPLv3+ is
one of the options.

However, looking at B3 "does not encourage bad licensing practices (no
license, ...)", it seems to me that "encouraging ... no licence" means
precisely situations like you describe.  So I think if we have to
interpret the criteria without help from the authors, the authors
probably intended this to fail B3 but not C5.

As an aside, I think the use of the word "encourage" is unfortunate in
this quasi-legal document.  Exactly what counts as "encouraging" can
be doubted.  For example, would simply having GPLv3-only in the
dropdown list be "encouraging" it, even if the default were GPLv3+ ?

> and 2) picking GPL-3.0 adds license text to a
> new repo but no explicit choice between "only" and "or-later" (not sure
> if this is an overly strict analysis, or de facto standard, and
> accepted, behaviour).

It's not clear to me from this whether whether "GPL-3.0" dropdown
results in the project being licenced (i) GPLv3-only or (ii) GPLv3+.

In case (ii) this is obviously a pass.

In case (i) GPLv3+ isn't even one of the options and this is a fail.

Ian.