FWIW, maybe this is an opportunity for SPDX to lead? Most of these look similar, but not the same. I’m guessing a lot of the similar ones would have the same legal effect, although the more dissimilar ones, maybe not (depending on where you are, and as we know some places don’t recognize PD).
Might it be useful for SPDX to adopt a single PD tag for what they think is the best format for such a dedication, and see if that leads to adoption of that format/text, rather than everyone writing their own? As to your questions: 1. Yes. 2. No. Just because of the variation in these things, you might be tagging different things with different legal outcomes using the same identifier, which could be an issue downstream. From: Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org <Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org> On Behalf Of J Lovejoy Sent: Monday, May 8, 2023 8:34 PM To: 'SPDX-legal' <Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org> Subject: public domain dedication variants in the wild (found in Fedora) Hi SPDX-legal Some time ago, I raised the issue of the possibility of finding a proliferation of "public domain "dedication" texts in the course of Fedora reviewing package license info to adopt SPDX ids. Please see https://lists.spdx.org/g/Spdx-legal/topic/93048752#3202 for the background Fedora has been "collecting" such texts here https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/blob/main/public-domain-text.txt and using a specific LicenseRef-Fedora-Public-Domain as a sort of placeholder SPDX id. The idea being, no assessment of how many of these types of dedications exist has been collected in one place in order for the SPDX-legal community to assess. I estimate that Fedora has collected about 48 variations of public domain statements that are not specifically identified on the SPDX License List. I'm going to assume many of these packages also show up in other major distros. I'd like to raise the conversation as to: 1) Should each unique entry be added to the SPDX License List as a standalone entry (like normal, in that one SPDX license id represents a specific, identifiable license/set of text)? 2) Should SPDX consider a different approach by defining one SPDX id to represent any one of a collection of specifically identified and vetted texts? I'd love to hear your yes or no answer to these questions and why you answered as such :) Also see for background: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/update-existing-packages/#_updating_existing_packages_callaway_short_name_categories https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/update-existing-packages/#_public_domain We likely won't have time to discuss this on Thursday's call, but I wanted to start the discussion here and perhaps we can dedicate some time at an upcoming meeting. Thanks, Jilayne -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#3367): https://lists.spdx.org/g/Spdx-legal/message/3367 Mute This Topic: https://lists.spdx.org/mt/98776908/21656 Group Owner: spdx-legal+ow...@lists.spdx.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.spdx.org/g/Spdx-legal/unsub [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
