spdx
New license request: BSD-Checkmk [SPDX-Online-Tools]
1. License Name: BSD Checkmk 2. Short identifier: BSD-Checkmk 3. License Author or steward: Unknown 4. Comments: This license does not match any currently on the list. The license text has not changed in the last 12 years. It appears to be a watered down variant of the BSD family. It is generally usable.
This license is under review for Fedora: https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/56 5. Standard License Header: 6. License Request Url: http://tools.spdx.org/app/license_requests/155 7. URL(s): https://github.com/libcheck/check/blob/master/checkmk/checkmk.in 8. OSI Status: Unknown 9. Example Projects: https://github.com/libcheck/check
This has nothing to do with BSD. It's not a BSD variant, though the language is vaguely similar to the grant that BSD and other licenses have. Since it's a unique snowflake, I'd suggest a unique name.
I tried to squeeze it into the 0-clause BSD license already on the list, and I couldn't even do that. It doesn't match the ISC license, though the language is more similar
This license:
Redistribution of this program in any form, with or without
modifications, is permitted, provided that the above copyright is
retained in distributions of this program in source form.
ISC:
Permission to use, copy, modify, and /or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
But the ISC license goes on to have a disclaimer.
Also, there's a parenthetical at the end, should that be included? And what's the exact text we should do for this request. There's no steward for this license or a canonical place to grab it.
So some name that doesn't have BSD in it or ISC or MiT in it would be best. It's unrelated to any of those enough to justify the confusion that would result if others start to use this license.
Without having done a rigorous review yet, I'm optimistic that this would satisfy the License Inclusion Principles. I would also agree that it should be called 'Checkmk' :smiley:
Might the license steward actually be the Micah Cowan mentioned in the copyright statement?
Written by Micah Cowan [email protected] Copyright (c) 2006, 2010 Micah Cowan
Also, there's a parenthetical at the end, should that be included? And what's the exact text we should do for this request. There's no steward for this license or a canonical place to grab it.
On the Fedora side, I'm leaning toward the view that the parenthetical is necessary for our (likely) approval of the license, even though I read it as the license drafter's (or one known licensor-user's) statement of interpretation of the previous paragraph. The full text with the second paragraph and the prefatory copyright notice added:
Copyright (c) 2006, 2010 Micah Cowan
Redistribution of this program in any form, with or without
modifications, is permitted, provided that the above copyright is
retained in distributions of this program in source form.
(This is a free, non-copyleft license compatible with pretty much any
other free or proprietary license, including the GPL. It's essentially
a scaled-down version of the "modified" BSD license.)
We are approving this for Fedora, with the parenthetical being treated as a required part of the license text.
+1 to add, given FOSS nature of license terms and clear widespread use of this code in Fedora (plus apparently packaged for all sorts of other distros, according to its README).
+1 to not using "BSD" in the name or ID.
Personally I'd go with "checkmk", lowercase c, as the ID since that appears to be the styling used by the original author.
I'd lean towards adding this with the parenthetical included and initially non-optional. If this is the only instance of this license in the wild, then it doesn't really matter. If we later run across other folks using it in other projects without the parenthetical, then we could discuss at that point whether to mark the parenthetical text as optional (which would still match with Fedora's use here).
License Inclusion Decision
Decision:
- approved
Full name:
- Checkmk License
Short id:
- checkmk
XML markup:
- none (for now)
Additional rationale or notes on decision:
- none
edited by @swinslow to add "License" to end of Full Name, to mirror pattern for similar license names on the license list
@jamesjer - would you be willing to prepare the PR for this license? We have some (detailed) instructions here: https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/blob/master/DOCS/new-license-workflow.md#accepted
Let us know. Thanks!
@jlovejoy I edited your comment above to change the Full Name from "Checkmk" to "Checkmk License" -- I think that's the pattern we've generally used for other similar single-project license names.