Re: [BuildStream] BuildStream license compliance: taking steps further

[Paul Sherwood <paul sherwood codethink co uk>]

Hi Agustin,
please see my comments inline...

On 2018-12-18 11:20, Agustín Benito Bethencourt via BuildStream-list 
wrote:
> I have been checking the headers of BuildStream files. I think there
> is some extra effort we can do to improve the current state of
> Buildstream compliance with the license.

While I appreciate that world and dog are taking increasing interest in 
this (not least as a result  of OpenChain and other initiatives), I 
personally think that BST licensing is in a mess (wrong licence was 
chosen originally) and we'd be better placed trying to unravel that 
before expending effort on compliance.

> ## Why should we put effort in the compliance field?
>
> 1.- Compliance is a hygiene factor. It does not shine but it is
> definitely a problem when it is not there.
> 2.- Every atom of effort we put on compliance upstream is time and
> money we save downstream, specially in commercial environments.

I'd be interested to hear how you justify this claim. bst is primarily 
tooling for construction of software - downstreams would not normally 
distribute bst, so it's not clear to me what time/costs you're referring 
to?

> 3.- License compliance is an important (negative) factor for more and
> more decision makers in commercial environments when it comes to
> choosing a tool/technology.

There are other, arguably more important factors. Not sure why you're 
flagging this one specifically.

> 4.- It says more than we might think about the professionals and
> stakeholders behind the project to more and more people.

I represent a stakeholder, and I completely failed to even notice the 
licensing adopted by the project. That reflects badly on me, obviously, 
but I don't see how focusing any effort on compliance is going to help 
in the slightest. i Please enlighten me :-)

br
Paul