license of empty file

[Miroslav Suchý]

Webkitgtk has interresting file:

Documentation/jsc-glib-4.1/fonts.css

The file has this content:

/*
* SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 GNOME Foundation
*
* SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 OR GPL-3.0-or-later
*/

And that is all. No other content is there. So it is literaly an empty file with license declaration.

Should this license be honored and put in License tag of spec file? Or is it copyright of not-copyrightable file and 
should be ignored?

[Richard Fontana]

On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 2:00 AM Miroslav Suchý  wrote:
> Webkitgtk has interresting file:
>
> Documentation/jsc-glib-4.1/fonts.css
>
> The file has this content:
>
> /*
> SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 GNOME Foundation
> SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 OR GPL-3.0-or-later
>
> */
>
> And that is all. No other content is there. So it is literaly an empty file with license declaration.
>
> Should this license be honored and put in License tag of spec file? Or is it copyright of not-copyrightable file and
> should be ignored?

As a general rule, empty files should be ignored. It should certainly
not be accounted for in the License tag.

There are some cases where something like this could be a clue to how
*another* file is licensed but I think that is unlikely here because
this looks like it is the result of an attempt to make a repository
REUSE-conformant.

Richard

[Jilayne Lovejoy]

On 10/22/23 2:10 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 2:00 AM Miroslav Suchý  wrote:
> > Webkitgtk has interresting file:
> > Documentation/jsc-glib-4.1/fonts.css
> >
> > The file has this content:
> >
> > /*
> > SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 GNOME Foundation
> > SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 OR GPL-3.0-or-later
> >
> > */
> >
> > And that is all. No other content is there. So it is literaly an empty file with license declaration.
> >
> > Should this license be honored and put in License tag of spec file? Or is it copyright of not-copyrightable file and
> > should be ignored?
>
> As a general rule, empty files should be ignored. It should certainly
> not be accounted for in the License tag.
>
> There are some cases where something like this could be a clue to how
> *another* file is licensed but I think that is unlikely here because
> this looks like it is the result of an attempt to make a repository
> REUSE-conformant.

yes, I think Richard is spot-on that this is to conform to REUSE which, 
I think requires a copyright and license notice in every file. Good 
intentions, not always the best outcome, though...

J.
> legal mailing list -- [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
> Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
> Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue