licence policy update

The licence policy currently says that files must be under a free
licence but fails to say that they must be in source code form.  In
order to prevent anyone putting binary blobs without source code into
SVN I'd like to add this to the policy

"All files must be in their preferred modifiable form, or alongside
the file which is the preferred modifiable form."

http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy/Draft

Jonathan
_______________________________________________
Kde-licensing mailing list
Kde-licensing@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-licensing

On Friday 13 February 2009 22:12:51 Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> The licence policy currently says that files must be under a free
> licence but fails to say that they must be in source code form.  In
> order to prevent anyone putting binary blobs without source code into
> SVN I'd like to add this to the policy
>
> "All files must be in their preferred modifiable form, or alongside
> the file which is the preferred modifiable form."
>
> http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy/Draft

Seems very sensible to me.

The GPL and LGPL, of course, don't make much sense if you don't include the
source code, but there's nothing inherent in the BSD or MIT licenses that
suggest source code needs to be available.  And even in the case of the LGPL
and GPL, it's better to make it explicit.

Alex


--
Why have I got six monitors?  Because I haven't got room for eight.
  -- Terry Pratchett



_______________________________________________
Kde-licensing mailing list
Kde-licensing@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-licensing

Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> The licence policy currently says that files must be under a free
> licence but fails to say that they must be in source code form.  In
> order to prevent anyone putting binary blobs without source code into
> SVN I'd like to add this to the policy
>
> "All files must be in their preferred modifiable form, or alongside
> the file which is the preferred modifiable form."
> http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy/Draft

I'd even go a step further and add some language about rebuildability, like:

"In the 'alongside' case, there must be clear instructions for how to
build using the preferred modifiable form."

-- Rex
_______________________________________________
Kde-licensing mailing list
Kde-licensing@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-licensing

On Friday 13 February 2009 11:12:51 pm Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> "All files must be in their preferred modifiable form, or alongside
> the file which is the preferred modifiable form."

Seems like a good addition; you could do a little e.g. list there as well, but
that's not critical, as the notion of preferred modifiable form is present in
the GPL license texts as well.

--
Adriaan de Groot - Vice President, KDE e.V. (Legal Affairs)
                 - http://ev.kde.org/
_______________________________________________
Kde-licensing mailing list
Kde-licensing@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-licensing

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Adriaan de Groot <groot@...> wrote:
> On Friday 13 February 2009 11:12:51 pm Jonathan Riddell wrote:
>> "All files must be in their preferred modifiable form, or alongside
>> the file which is the preferred modifiable form."
>
> Seems like a good addition; you could do a little e.g. list there as well, but
> that's not critical, as the notion of preferred modifiable form is present in
> the GPL license texts as well.

I think an e.g. list to make it explictly clear that PNGs need their
SVG or even their PSD. Its never really obvious how the GPL applies to
art. For purely pratical reasons its good policy to have the
"preferred modifiable form" always committed.

Ian
_______________________________________________
Kde-licensing mailing list
Kde-licensing@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-licensing