Bug 912406 – Rename Open Publication License v1.0 from OPL to Open-Publication-1.0

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Ulrich Müller 2023-08-17 11:26:32 UTC]

"OPL" may stand for:
- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OpenPublicationL
  Open Publication License, Version 1.0
- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OpenContentL
  Open Content License, Version 1.0 (OPL)
- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OpenPublicL
  Open Public License version 1.0 (OPL-1.0)

The FSF's description for the Open Publication License says:
| Please note that this license is not the same as the Open Content License.
| These two licenses are frequently confused, as the Open Content License
| is often referred to as the “OPL”. For clarity, it is better not to use
| the abbreviation “OPL” for either license. It is worth spelling their
| names in full to make sure people understand what you say.

And indeed they got confused about it themselves: Their full text link for the  Open Publication License points to the text of the Open Public License (i.e. not the Open Content License mentioned in their note, but yet another license!).

The SPDX lists the Open Publication License v1.0 as OPUBL-1.0 since August 2021: https://spdx.org/licenses/OPUBL-1.0.html


Our label OPL was added in 2002 which predates the SPDX label. I suggest to rename it to OPUBL-1.0, in order to reduce confusion (at least somewhat).

It may also be worth checking all ebuilds with LICENSE="OPL" to check whether their usage is correct. As of today, there are only three:

app-doc/autobook-1.5
app-doc/motif-reference-manual-2.3.0-r3
dev-texlive/texlive-langgerman-2021

[Comment 1 Ulrich Müller 2023-08-17 11:32:58 UTC]

(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #0)
> It may also be worth checking all ebuilds with LICENSE="OPL" to check
> whether their usage is correct. As of today, there are only three:
> 
> app-doc/autobook-1.5
> app-doc/motif-reference-manual-2.3.0-r3
> dev-texlive/texlive-langgerman-2021

These all refer to the Open Publication License, i.e. they use the OPL label correctly.

[Comment 2 Ulrich Müller 2023-08-17 12:44:21 UTC]

Thinking about it, "OPUBL-1.0" isn't any less ambiguous than "OPL", so we might as well avoid the hassle of renaming. Also Debian lists it as "OPL": https://www.debian.org/opl

(It makes me wonder if the SPDX wasn't aware of the ambiguity, if they wanted to deviate from the FSF on purpose, or if it's just their inaptitude to choose good labels.)

If we should reconsider renaming, I'd suggest following the FSF's advice and choose something unambiguous like "Open-Publication-1.0".)