[Fedora-legal-list] [RFC] Switching to SPDX in license tags

[Richard Fontana]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 03:53:51PM +0200, Stanislav Ochotnicky wrote:
> On Thu 09 Jul 2015 03:36:54 PM CEST Richard Fontana wrote:
> 
> Can you elaborate a bit on the MIT(Fedora) != MIT(SPDX)?
> 
> Is the SPDX text of MIT different from what we'd consider MIT in
> Fedora? One difference I can see is that SPDX defines "canonical" text
> of the license where Fedora lumps several texts[1] into 1 short name.

Yes, that is it (well, there may be additional incongruities but
that's the one I know about).

To use "MIT" in the way Fedora does would conflict with the whole
philosophy of the SPDX abbreviation system, as I understand it.
 
> Without looking too much into SPDX license list - would some of the
> licenses we currently consider MIT fall under different license name
> under SPDX?

No, because they wouldn't have any standard name. As I understand it,
SPDX has created a set of abbreviations meant to cover the most
commonly-encountered license texts or license notices. Most of the
licenses that Fedora classifies as "MIT" would not have any SPDX name
(maybe even all but the OSI-style MIT license).

RF