This is a great discussion!
On 3/4/22 7:27 AM, David Cantrell wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2022 at 12:03:15PM -0700, Jilayne Lovejoy wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> >
> > As has been mentioned here prior, Richard and I are having a look at
> > the Licensing part of the Wiki with an eye towards any updates and
> > improvements, as well as moving that to the Fedora Docs (along with
> > David C's work on the database for the license info).
> >
> > Recently Richard posted here regarding an attempt to better define
> > the Fedora license categories in terms of what constitutes a "good"
> > license. He referenced the use of the terminology of "good" and
> > "bad" to indicate whether a license is approved for use in Fedora or
> > not.
> >
> > I wanted to raise that separately b/c as we go through the
> > documentation, how to best explain things in the clearest way comes
> > up. It'd be helpful to hear people's views on this.
> >
> > Historically - "good" has meant the license is approved for use in
> > Fedora; "bad" has meant the license is not approved for use in
> > Fedora; and then there are also three nuanced categories related to
> > fonts, documentation, and content which mean that certain licenses
> > are only approved for use in that context, but not otherwise
> > approved.
> >
> > How do people feel about the use of "good",
"good-for-fonts", "bad",
> > etc to describe these categories? Would simply using "approved",
> > "approved-for-fonts", "not-approved", etc. be easier to
understand?
> >
> > I'll throw in my opinion here, since I'm asking for that of others:
> > I'm kind of mixed on this. I always thought the good/bad indicator
> > was kind of nice in it's informality. However, now that I'm looking
> > more closely at documentation, sometimes the use of good and bad can
> > end up reading oddly. Practically speaking, I think use of
> > "approved" and "not-approved" might end up being easier to
> > understand. Good/bad also also has a greater connotation of
> > judgement versus simply "approved" - which implies more closely that
> > it must be approved for something. So, I guess I'd lean towards
> > simply using "approved" and "not-approved".
> >
> > Given that "good" and "bad" are historical for the Fedora
licensing
> > documentation - what are your thoughts on this?
>
> I do not have any strong feelings one way or another foor good/bad
> vs. approved/not-approved. I have always read "good" and "bad"
in the
> context
> of licenses to combine approval with the project's opinion on the
> license. As
> Richard indicated, that may not be something the project really wants to
> do.
> Like, we will tolerate a particular license but we do not think it is a
> good
> license.
>
> Approved/not-approved reduces that language to the project decision, but
> reads
> as heavy handed or utilitarian. Or at least reads as less fun language.
>
> I am ok with a language change in this context. I would like the license
> database should carry approval information distinct from our opinion or
> view
> on a particular license. The latter data may be more appropriate for
> overall
> Fedora legal documentation for future reference and including long
> writeups
> about how or why we arrived at a particular opinion (story time!).
>
> Looking at
thesaurus.com, my favorite synonyms for approved are:
>
> accepted
> allowed
> permitted
The point about not-approved being thought of in a different way was a
really good one.
Given those comments and David's synonyms, could we land on:
Allowed
Allowed-fonts
Allowed-content
Allowed-documentation
Not-allowed
?
Of course, the documentation explaining in more detail the criteria for
these is what really matters. In any case, I think it is a good goal to use
terminology that is easy to grasp on its face, particularly for non-native
English speakers, is a good goal.
It seems to me that "allowed" and "permitted" are the most logical,
but then
I'm a native English speaker, so my opinion is not as key here!
I think I like "allowed" because it makes sense in a sentence: "This
license
is (not)allowed for use in Fedora." I don't think that suffers the same
potential lack of clarity as "this license is not approved for use in
Fedora" being taken to mean it has not yet been reviewed/approved.
thoughts?
I like these. And the example sentence. I think allowed is simpler than
permitted.
Thanks,
> licensed[1]
>
> [1] This one added as a joke because I thought it was funny that it
> showed up
> as a synonym for approved and we're talking about licenses. Yeah, let's
> say
> "licensed" to mean an approved license in Fedora. That should not
> confuse
> anyone. :)
oh goodness!
Jilayne
>
> Thanks,
>
--
David Cantrell <dcantrell(a)redhat.com>
Red Hat, Inc. | Boston, MA | EST5EDT