PHP PEAR channel definition license

[Jon Stanley]

I'm running into an interesting problem with PHP PEAR channel
definition licensing. All that this really is is an XML file that
defines where to get the channel, etc, similar to a yum repo
definition.

The problem is that there is no copyright specified for this file.
Looking at other review requests, it looks like either the license
field was pulled out of thin air with no explanation, or they used the
license of the PHP modules distributed by the channel. This approach
seems wrong to me, as there could obviously be modules covered by
several different licenses.

At a more basic level, is such a file a even a copyrightable work? I
don't believe so, because it contains no creative expression
whatsoever - it's just metadata

[Tom Callaway]

On 01/30/2010 01:21 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  I'm running into an interesting problem with PHP PEAR channel
>  definition licensing. All that this really is is an XML file that
>  defines where to get the channel, etc, similar to a yum repo
>  definition.
>  
>  The problem is that there is no copyright specified for this file.
>  Looking at other review requests, it looks like either the license
>  field was pulled out of thin air with no explanation, or they used the
>  license of the PHP modules distributed by the channel. This approach
>  seems wrong to me, as there could obviously be modules covered by
>  several different licenses.
>  
>  At a more basic level, is such a file a even a copyrightable work? I
>  don't believe so, because it contains no creative expression
>  whatsoever - it's just metadata 
I'm going to say that the work you're describing is not copyrightable,
thus, we don't need to worry too much about it being unlicensed.

~spot

[Jon Stanley]

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway <tcallawa(a)redhat.com&gt;
wrote:
>  I'm going to say that the work you're describing is not
> copyrightable,
>  thus, we don't need to worry too much about it being unlicensed. 
Cool, what would a license tag for a package that contained only such a file be?

[Tom Callaway]

On 02/05/2010 06:37 PM, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway
> <tcallawa(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > I'm going to say that the work you're describing is not copyrightable,
> > thus, we don't need to worry too much about it being unlicensed.
>  
>  Cool, what would a license tag for a package that contained only such a file be? 
Umm, why would you package something that only contained such a file?
I'm assuming it points to PHP PEAR code, why aren't you packaging that?

~spot

[Jon Stanley]

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway <tcallawa(a)redhat.com&gt;
wrote:
>  Umm, why would you package something that only contained such a
> file?
>  I'm assuming it points to PHP PEAR code, why aren't you packaging that? 
I'm not packaging anything :)

I'm asking the question for David Nalley, who asked the question of
me.  To directly answer the question though, the PHP packaging
guidelines seem to require this -
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#PEAR_Packages_from_a_non_sta...
and there are many examples already in the package collection:

[jstanley@monster Packages]$ ls -l php-channel*
-rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 4352 2009-10-03 00:41
php-channel-doctrine-1.0.0-2.fc12.noarch.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 4364 2009-08-08 13:17
php-channel-ezc-1-2.fc12.noarch.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 5032 2009-08-12 14:40
php-channel-phing-1.0.0-7.fc12.noarch.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 4 jstanley jstanley 4848 2009-08-08 16:39
php-channel-phpdb-1.0.0-6.fc12.noarch.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 2 jstanley jstanley 4500 2009-08-12 22:37
php-channel-phpunit-1.0-4.fc12.noarch.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 2 jstanley jstanley 4592 2009-08-12 14:45
php-channel-symfony-1.0.0-4.fc12.noarch.rpm

[Tom Callaway]

On 02/06/2010 06:07 PM, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway
> <tcallawa(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Umm, why would you package something that only contained such a file?
> > I'm assuming it points to PHP PEAR code, why aren't you packaging that?
>  
>  I'm not packaging anything :)
>  
>  I'm asking the question for David Nalley, who asked the question of
>  me.  To directly answer the question though, the PHP packaging
>  guidelines seem to require this -
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#PEAR_Packages_from_a_non_sta...
>  and there are many examples already in the package collection: 
Eh. Okay. Seems a silly thing to package standalone, but whatever. Use:

License: Public Domain

Since these channel files are not copyrightable, they can be treated as
if they were in the public domain.

~spot