Hello, on Sonntag, 29. Juli 2007, Lukas Ocilka wrote:
Christian Boltz wrote:
Hello, ... You mentioned an interesting point: Licenses used just for one package. IMHO it's pointless to move them to the licenses package because you can't save any space - you only can waste it if the package with that license isn't installed.
I'd propose to put only licenses that are used at least by 10 packages in the licenses package. This solves several problems: - the non-existing space saving effect I mentioned above - the risk of having to keep old licenses (as mentioned by Robert) just to stay backward-compatible is reduced (because at least some of the packages will still be using it ;-) - the licenses package would be smaller - no need to split it
Actually *all* licenses are in one package, so moving a license file from one to another isn't *space wasting* :)
Only if each of the licenses is needed by at least one _installed_ package.
rpm -ql licenses | grep /usr/share/doc/licenses/md5/ | wc -l 263
Do you have some statistics *how many times* each of them is used? This would be the most interesting information here.
Your proposal including a license in licenses.rpm seems to be interesting, however it doesn't solve *space wasting* because there is no such issue.
Depends of the point of view. There *is* such an issue on the well-discussed "minimal system" with only few packages installed. In this case, you don't need any of the more "exotic" licenses. You only need GPL, LGPL and the BSD license. (Yes, I know this is over-simplified, but you should get the point.) OTOH, I think that nearly no space will be wasted by "unused" licenses on my full-blown home installation (workstation + web development + much more). Looking at it from the other way round: By moving all licenses to the licenses package, - you _can_ save space at often used licenses (GPL and LGPL are the best examples, they are used hundres of times each) - you _cannot_ save space if a license is only needed by one package. This may even need additional space if the package with this license isn't installed.
We should, of course, include only licenses, that are in use.
Obvious - we don't need the Windows EULA ;-)
Backward compatibility should be considered only for already released RPMs for one product. (I think this might be a bit tricky if not handled correctly).
Sooner or later, you'll end up with a licenses-compat package. And, whatever you do, the size will always increase because of new licenses, but never decrease because you aren't allowed to remove "outdated" licenses. And you'll probably have to ship all licenses* packages, including -compat, in every media set, even on the one-CD for legal reasons [1] - you know how small a CD can be? ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz [1] I doubt that a pointer "please download all licenses at download.opensuse.org/somepath" is valid... -- Since 1997 we are VERP-DoSing mail servers all over the world [Henne Vogelsang in opensuse about lists.suse.com] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+help@opensuse.org