Expand the licenses allowed in collections

[abadger]

Allow modules and module_utils to use licenses that are compatible with
the GPLv3+ rather than restricting them to only the GPLv3+.

This is to address the issue raised here: ansible-community/community-topics#2

(Allowing a collection with modules licensed under Apache v2)

ISSUE TYPE

t

• Docs Pull Request

[felixfontein]

I think we should also require something on the license of other files included in the collections, that are not code. I'm not sure what exactly that requirement would be, though.

[abadger]

I think we should also require something on the license of other files included in the collections, that are not code. I'm not sure what exactly that requirement would be, though.

Yeah, I agree but it's an area that I haven't learned a whole lot about in the past so I hesitated to put something in for this update.

[felixfontein]

How about also requiring "compatible to GPLv3+"? If there's need we can easily update it (and allow more licenses).

[felixfontein]

Oh, should we also say something special about doc_fragments?

[felixfontein]

Decided in today's community meeting (+6, -1, 1x0): to be merged as-is.

The general consensus is to be more flexible, but not without RedHat legal giving a green light first.

[ssbarnea]

I do think we should also include a list of OSI approved licenses that we consider compatible or we risk into confusing people that do know differences between most licenses and I do not want for make them believe we force them towards using GPL.

Considering that Galaxy already have a requirements to use SPDX licenses, I think we must follow suit and list the subset that is considered ok. Once we have this list I can also help people pick right compatible licenses by including a rule inside the linter.

As I think it may take a while to get a more complete list, we should at least clearly address answer for the most popular ones: Apache, MIT, BSD, GPL and LGPL.

Links:

• https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical
• https://spdx.org/licenses/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_software_license

[felixfontein]

@ssbarnea if you want to discuss it, it's better to create a new issue in https://github.com/ansible-community/community-topics/issues. A merged PR isn't the best place to discuss such things :)

[ssbarnea]

I added #166 so we can track it there.

[felixfontein]

@ssbarnea can you please create an issue in the correct repository (I linked above)?