Change of ACCEPT_LICENSE default

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 8:38 pm Post subject:

Tony0945,

Licences should be read and understood before you install the material they cover, not afterwards.
_________________
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

That seems difficult at best, given the disagreement of understanding among legal experts. Add to that in some cases hundreds or thousands of words to describe just how "free" a license is, and I question whether or not anyone can truly claim to understand such a license. Maybe that's why some teams of lawyers lean toward "too much risk." Exactly who then are these licenses benefiting?

Seems like maybe a split of the ACCEPT_LICENSE change and general license discussion may be needed.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo?

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 12:47 am Post subject:

STrRedWolf · n00b Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 72

Ghah, what fresh hell happened here?!? I go in to upgrade and now the defaults are changed, and my system starts screaming at me.

Yes, I read the notice on the change of the ACCEPT_LICENSE defaults (although I keep misspelling it ACCEPT_LICENCE with a C and not an S, thus why it screamed). And now I get a wall of text long enough to be used for the southern US border.

Yes, I know the reason for that is good -- MongoDB switching licenses. I hope it's forked, to be honest. But this is a big overreaction IMHO. It's going to cause problems for those who don't read the notices.

Here's how I would of handled it:

Create the @EXPLICIT license group and throw MongoDB's new license in there. The group would be for any license you have to explicitly agree to, even if it is "free" (but not GPL/etc open source).
Change the default ACCEPT_LICENSE to "* -@EULA -@EXPLICIT"
Explain in the notices the change (like what happened here).

You get a more targeted effect, and less headache down the line. And yes, I would throw the "MSttfEULA" and "xv" licenses in @EXPLICIT as well.

At least we now have a tool to audit these things:

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 1:03 pm Post subject:

krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

I don't think mongodb license should be handle like that for many reasons:
- you don't ask people who get free license to read them, and many users might redistribute themselves binary package made from their own gentoo without respecting the distribution close found in GPL kind of licenses.
So you are accepting that people "should" read the license terms, and that they "should" respect it themselves, without specially pointing them to their responsabilities.
i don't see why we should specially point out mongodb users about a special use of mongodb as a service for their server.
nor i see anyone taking special action for AGPL covered software, that is also toward service usage.

- mongodb will certainly be accept by FSF, they advocate free software over anything else, that #13 close of mongodb is enforcing that to a point not even AGPL has reach, and i think it push the concept way better (if we speak only in term of enforcing usage of free software).

so all the changes made, will endup with mongodb accept as free license by FSF and the mess was done for nothing.

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 1:13 pm Post subject:

STrRedWolf · n00b Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 72

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

I am mostly fine with ACCEPT_LICENSE="-* @FREE"
but I have a few packages that I want to keep. I put them in package.license
Those packages are still masked though.

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 4:21 pm Post subject:

Two things:
1. did you run ". /etc/profile" or "source /etc/profile" or just open a different xterminal?
One of these is needed for portage to rea-read the file.

2. My file lists the package and license. I don't know if leaving the license out is a problem or not.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 4:21 pm Post subject:

transsib,

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

Neddy, I would like to say :"Yes, that´s much better" but I can´t:
doesn´t change a bit.

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 5:05 pm Post subject:

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

I am dumb ... :lol:

Would have been too easy with just "license", right?
Sorry Neddy.

ulm · Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 11:25 am Post subject:

tld · Veteran Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 1816

Really like the elicense utility for sure. I too went the route of commenting out my existing ACCEPT_LICENSE and using elicense to create package.license. I like knowing exactly which packages require which licenses, especially if I end up uninstalling them.

EDIT: By the way...at least in my case, I still required the firmware license for gentoo-sources, only because I still had an older sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.14.83 installed (though I was running sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.19.27-r1). That requirement went away when I uninstalled 4.14.83...so apparently 4.14 still had that.

ulm · Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 4:03 pm Post subject:

tld · Veteran Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 1816

MerlinYoda · Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 11:30 pm Post subject:

xanderal · Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 6:22 pm Post subject:

I use the default "-* @FREE" and have a few entries in /etc/portage/package.license/ which I thought I'd test with elicense.
Most entries checked out but one puzzles me - I have the following /etc/portage/package.license/linux-firmware:

MerlinYoda · Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 8:49 pm Post subject:

statikregimen · Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 12:43 am Post subject:

Well this is kind of an irritating system shock.

All I want, is to be prompted when installing non-free software - a simple "This is not free. The license is <here>. Are you sure you want to install?" would be lovely. Then, if it has a EULA I have to accept, present it on the spot and prompt me to accept.

What I don't want, is to have to cancel my emerge command every time, to go set a specific rule when it goes all "!!! Licenses" at me....Especially not when there's suddenly 20 packages complaining all at once. I also do not want to auto-accept anything, install non-free software without knowing, nor have to look up licenses in advance.

Is this possible?

Tony0945 · Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 3:16 am Post subject:

statikregimen, This a change of default. There is nothing AFAIK that prevents you from overriding it in make.conf with the old default or even a star to accept anything. The changes you suggest would be nice, but take a lot more to implement than a simple license change.
Ulm has been nice enough to give us a heads up instead of us discovering it in the middle of a world update. I, for one, appreciate that.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

statikregimen · Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 3:48 am Post subject: