[gentoo-dev] License of news items

[Ulrich Mueller]

The gentoo-news repository requires a Signed-off-by line in the commit,
while news items don't have any license information. So technically,
these commits aren't compliant with GLEP 76.

The simplest way to fix this would be adding a README file in the
top-level dir of the repository, see patch below.

This would apply retroactively since 2018-10-21 (when GLEP 76 was marked
as Active). I am going to file a bug for authors to acknowledge that
their news items can be distributed under CC-BY-SA-4.0.

Alternatively, we could add a new header line with license information
to the items themselves, but that would be more complicated with (IMHO)
little gain.

Ulrich


From 43a9e1d8c9e06bb35e7dd754bf211aa205f98dc9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Ulrich=20M=C3=BCller?= <u...@gentoo.org>
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2020 09:59:44 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Add README file with copyright and license information.
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Signed-off-by: Ulrich Müller <u...@gentoo.org>
---
README | 7 +++++++
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 README

diff --git a/README b/README
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63cbead
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+Copyright of Gentoo news items is held by their respective authors
+and translators.
+
+All news items committed after 2018-10-21 are licensed under the
+Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
+Visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ to view a copy
+of this license.
--
2.29.2

[Michał Górny]

For better consistency, we could also add a 'License' tag to the news
items.

--
Best regards,
Michał Górny

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Sat, 26 Dec 2020, Michał Górny wrote:

> On Sat, 2020-12-26 at 10:20 +0100, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>> Alternatively, we could add a new header line with license
>> information to the items themselves, but that would be more
>> complicated with (IMHO) little gain.

> For better consistency, we could also add a 'License' tag to the news
> items.

Yeah, but see what I had said above.

However, if the consensus is that we should have such a line, see
attached patch for GLEP 42.

Ulrich


From 51a81ad6b4d43ce9d79dbd9db4ef1effffc864b7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Ulrich=20M=C3=BCller?= <u...@gentoo.org>
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2020 12:12:40 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] glep-0042: News item format 2.1 has a "License" header.

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Signed-off-by: Ulrich Müller <u...@gentoo.org>
---

glep-0042.rst | 20 ++++++++++++--------
1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/glep-0042.rst b/glep-0042.rst
index 0c40261..feb87ee 100644
--- a/glep-0042.rst
+++ b/glep-0042.rst
@@ -9,10 +9,10 @@ Type: Standards Track
Status: Final
Version: 4
Created: 2005-10-31
-Last-Modified: 2019-11-07
+Last-Modified: 2020-12-26
Post-History: 2005-11-01, 2005-11-05, 2005-11-07, 2005-12-11, 2005-12-13,
2005-12-18, 2006-01-05, 2006-03-02, 2006-03-06, 2006-06-12,
- 2006-09-05, 2016-03-10, 2017-11-27
+ 2006-09-05, 2016-03-10, 2017-11-27, 2020-12-26
Content-Type: text/x-rst
---

@@ -231,6 +231,10 @@ The following headers describe the purpose and format of the news item:
For translated news items, the translator's name and email address. Multiple
translator headers may be specified if appropriate.

+``License:``
+ Only in news item format ``2.1`` and later, where it is mandatory and must
+ be ``CC-BY-SA-4.0``.
+
``Content-Type:``
Only in news item format ``1.0``, where it is mandatory and must be
``text/plain``.
@@ -247,9 +251,9 @@ The following headers describe the purpose and format of the news item:
item. Mandatory.

``News-Item-Format:``
- Known formats are ``1.0`` and ``2.0``. Future revisions to the format
- may increment the minor number for forwards-compatible changes (i.e.,
- still allowing older tools to process the new format), or the major
+ Known formats are ``1.0``, ``2.0`` and ``2.1``. Future revisions to the
+ format may increment the minor number for forwards-compatible changes
+ (i.e., still allowing older tools to process the new format), or the major
number for major changes.

The following headers are used for filtering:
@@ -519,8 +523,8 @@ References
Copyright
=========

-This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
-Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
-https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
+This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
+https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

.. vim: set tw=80 fileencoding=utf-8 spell spelllang=en et :
--
2.29.2

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Thu, 31 Dec 2020, Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera (klondike) wrote:

> El 26/12/20 a las 10:20, Ulrich Mueller escribió:

>> This would apply retroactively since 2018-10-21 (when GLEP 76 was marked
>> as Active). I am going to file a bug for authors to acknowledge that
>> their news items can be distributed under CC-BY-SA-4.0.

> For all matters the news item I wrote in 2017 can be distributed under
> that license (and also under the GFDL if you prefer).

Thanks. Feel free to add your acknowledgment to bug 762820:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/762820

Ulrich

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Sat, 26 Dec 2020, Ulrich Mueller wrote:

>>>>> On Sat, 26 Dec 2020, Michał Górny wrote:
>> On Sat, 2020-12-26 at 10:20 +0100, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>>> Alternatively, we could add a new header line with license
>>> information to the items themselves, but that would be more
>>> complicated with (IMHO) little gain.

>> For better consistency, we could also add a 'License' tag to the news
>> items.

> Yeah, but see what I had said above.

> However, if the consensus is that we should have such a line, see
> attached patch for GLEP 42.

Coming back to this old thread. There were no more replies, but I don't
feel like merging this patch after such a long time, unless there would
be more support for it.

So, any further opinions?

Note that the README file (mentioned previously in this thread) is in
place: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/data/gentoo-news.git/tree/README

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Sun, 08 May 2022, Ulrich Mueller wrote:

>>>> Alternatively, we could add a new header line with license
>>>> information to the items themselves, but that would be more
>>>> complicated with (IMHO) little gain.

>>> For better consistency, we could also add a 'License' tag to the
>>> news items.

>> Yeah, but see what I had said above.

>> However, if the consensus is that we should have such a line, see
>> attached patch for GLEP 42.

> Coming back to this old thread. There were no more replies, but I
> don't feel like merging this patch after such a long time, unless
> there would be more support for it.

> So, any further opinions?

No answer, therefore I am going to drop that patch.

Ulrich