[yocto] License information of tasks

[Markus Hubig]

On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 11:39:10AM +0100, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> On Friday 24 August 2012 12:05:41 Markus Hubig wrote:
> > 
> > First: tasks are packages without content.
> > 
> > | rpm -qpl task-core-boot-1.0-r9.stamp9g20.rpm
> > | (contains no files)
> > 
> > ... so why do they need some license information in the first place?
> 
> This is something that annoys me as well. I have thought about adding the 
> ability to declare that a license is not applicable for those recipes that 
> don't actually distribute any files, in which case a check during do_deploy, 
> do_package and do_populate_sysroot would be enabled that would fail if the 
> recipe ended up distributing anything. Unfortunately we don't have hooks in 
> all of the necessary places to make this practical, but it is still something 
> I would like to resolve.

Hmm, it seems you don't have to use LIC_FILES_CHKSUM in a image recipe. So
maybe one can adapt it from there ...

> 2) Set your own variable to the value of LAYERDIR in layer.conf and then use 
> that in the recipe; however that would make the recipe even more hardwired to 
> the specific layer.

Hmm OK but this seems nevertheless a good solution ... will try it.

> 3) Refer to a license file in ${COMMON_LICENSE_DIR}; this is discouraged as it 
> may break if files in there are moved around although I think that is less 
> likely in future.

Also OK IMHO ...

> 4) Copy the license file into the directory containing the recipe. This is the 
> recommended method for recipes that do actually distribute files, but seems 
> excessive for a task.

That's bad cause I have to duplicate all files this way. My first thought was
to use the License files I already included into my layers for this ...

> Ultimately though is it really important that the license for a recipe that 
> distributes no files be any particular license?

Yes I also think these files (themselves) are covered my the layer license and
since they don't distribute any files don't need an additional license.

Maybe some day there will be a distinction of the licence information between
the Yocto stuff like Layers, tasks, images and recipes and the created
software.

Cheers, Markus

-- 
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.