Hide "Licenses" box for gems with N/A Licenses

[qrush]

Not a fan of this empty block of copy now that is on most gems since #363 / #458 has been merged:

http://rubygems.org/gems/rails

Let's just hide it if the gem has no info.

[adkron]

I like it because I feel it is a call to action for the maintainer to add it.

[qrush]

The license field is opt-in, and optional in the gemspec. It's also very inaccurate for many projects that simply have omitted it by mistake or just not knowing how to specify it in the gemspec.

[adkron]

Does that make the information of NA any less accurate? Will this call maintainer attention to that information? I think it would be great to have a little ❓ icon next to information that comes out of the gemspec file. The ❓ would then lead to the documentation about how to specify that in your gemspec.

[qrush]

The N/A is just a waste of space, and I feel like it's not genuine. Everything with the gems page is upfront and obvious:. What does N/A even mean in this context, as someone who might be unfamiliar with gems? I just don't like the design decision behind the copy. The license is not "unknown" or "not available", we just simply don't have enough information.

I also don't see where or how a ? icon would go to be helpful.

Sorry if this is coming off as pissy...just trying to approach this with fresh eyes.

[adkron]

@qrush I don't think it is pissy at all. I see where your coming from. I just wanted to make sure that it was talked out. I think there are good reasons for both.

[sferik]

I have an idea: What if we only showed the ❓ icon if a user is signed in as one of the gem maintainers and the license is blank. This would subtly encourage maintainers to add a LICENSE declaration to their gems without confusing new users or creating unnecessary UI cruft.

[adkron]

I like that.

[sferik]

@adkron Want to code up a patch?

[qrush]

I'm fine with the scoping to an owner of a gem. Heck, we could put an entire block of copy "You should add a license! etc etc". with links to some page (externally) that describes the choices.

I still don't get where the ? would go.

[sferik]

I imaged the ❓ would go under the Licenses heading (only visible to the gem owner) but I think you're right, it makes more sense to just explain it inline:

It looks like you have not specified a license for this gem in your gemspec. Here's an example of how to do that:

spec.licenses = ["My Favorite License"]

[adkron]

I'm going to close this for now. We can bring up another ticket if we want to revisit the solution. The original idea is this ticket is complete and merged.