I'm running into an interesting problem with PHP PEAR channel definition licensing. All that this really is is an XML file that defines where to get the channel, etc, similar to a yum repo definition.
The problem is that there is no copyright specified for this file. Looking at other review requests, it looks like either the license field was pulled out of thin air with no explanation, or they used the license of the PHP modules distributed by the channel. This approach seems wrong to me, as there could obviously be modules covered by several different licenses.
At a more basic level, is such a file a even a copyrightable work? I don't believe so, because it contains no creative expression whatsoever - it's just metadata
On 01/30/2010 01:21 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
I'm running into an interesting problem with PHP PEAR channel definition licensing. All that this really is is an XML file that defines where to get the channel, etc, similar to a yum repo definition.
The problem is that there is no copyright specified for this file. Looking at other review requests, it looks like either the license field was pulled out of thin air with no explanation, or they used the license of the PHP modules distributed by the channel. This approach seems wrong to me, as there could obviously be modules covered by several different licenses.
At a more basic level, is such a file a even a copyrightable work? I don't believe so, because it contains no creative expression whatsoever - it's just metadata
I'm going to say that the work you're describing is not copyrightable, thus, we don't need to worry too much about it being unlicensed.
~spot
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
I'm going to say that the work you're describing is not copyrightable, thus, we don't need to worry too much about it being unlicensed.
Cool, what would a license tag for a package that contained only such a file be?
On 02/05/2010 06:37 PM, Jon Stanley wrote:
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
I'm going to say that the work you're describing is not copyrightable, thus, we don't need to worry too much about it being unlicensed.
Cool, what would a license tag for a package that contained only such a file be?
Umm, why would you package something that only contained such a file? I'm assuming it points to PHP PEAR code, why aren't you packaging that?
~spot
On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
Umm, why would you package something that only contained such a file? I'm assuming it points to PHP PEAR code, why aren't you packaging that?
I'm not packaging anything :)
I'm asking the question for David Nalley, who asked the question of me. To directly answer the question though, the PHP packaging guidelines seem to require this - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#PEAR_Packages_from_a_non_standa... and there are many examples already in the package collection:
[jstanley@monster Packages]$ ls -l php-channel* -rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 4352 2009-10-03 00:41 php-channel-doctrine-1.0.0-2.fc12.noarch.rpm -rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 4364 2009-08-08 13:17 php-channel-ezc-1-2.fc12.noarch.rpm -rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 5032 2009-08-12 14:40 php-channel-phing-1.0.0-7.fc12.noarch.rpm -rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 4848 2009-08-08 16:39 php-channel-phpdb-1.0.0-6.fc12.noarch.rpm -rw-r--r-- 2 jstanley jstanley 4500 2009-08-12 22:37 php-channel-phpunit-1.0-4.fc12.noarch.rpm -rw-r--r-- 2 jstanley jstanley 4592 2009-08-12 14:45 php-channel-symfony-1.0.0-4.fc12.noarch.rpm
On 02/06/2010 06:07 PM, Jon Stanley wrote:
On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
Umm, why would you package something that only contained such a file? I'm assuming it points to PHP PEAR code, why aren't you packaging that?
I'm not packaging anything :)
I'm asking the question for David Nalley, who asked the question of me. To directly answer the question though, the PHP packaging guidelines seem to require this - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#PEAR_Packages_from_a_non_standa... and there are many examples already in the package collection:
Eh. Okay. Seems a silly thing to package standalone, but whatever. Use:
License: Public Domain
Since these channel files are not copyrightable, they can be treated as if they were in the public domain.
~spot
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Jon Stanley -
Tom Callaway