The Gentoo Handbook should include a section on ACCEPT_LICENSE and related features. I would suggest a new section under "Working with Portage" titled "Licenses". I would suggest it includes: - ACCEPT_LICENSE in make.conf - /etc/portage/package.license - Where to find specific licenses in the main tree - How to find out what license a given package uses - An example of the output given when portage encounters a license which is masked
*** Bug 292502 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
------- Comment #4 From Martin Väth 2009-11-10 22:23:59 0000 [reply] ------- May I please suggest that portage should print a warning concerning the license if it "forgets" that a package is installed because the license does not match? In the above command the warning was printed, but if you had just installed sun-jdk before as in bug 292639, just an (actually unneeded) dependency is pulled in, and the user cannot see why this is happening, even worse: He might not even notice that something is wrong. I do not understand anyway why a masking of an *installed* package *tacitly* modifies the dependency tree as if it has not been installed. At least, a big fat warning should be printed in such a case, generally.
(In reply to comment #2) Open a new bug for that and assign it to the Portage team; this bug is for the handbook only.
Filled as bug 292752
I've written a short article on this feature at http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Licenses - please feel free to use any of the content I have written (or improve the article on the wiki!)
Portage team: Is this even something we can document for the stable version of Portage? My understanding was that ACCEPT_LICENSE is only in 2.2*. If so, this bug will have to be marked RESO LATER. Otherwise, it might have to be marked RESO CANTFIX without a patch, as I have no clue how the license features work. Patches or some kind of explanatory text that I can drop into the handbook are a must.
(In reply to comment #6) > My understanding was that ACCEPT_LICENSE is only in 2.2*. It's supported also in 2.1.7* which will be stabilized maybe in about 1 month. > Otherwise, it might have to be marked RESO CANTFIX without a patch, as I have > no clue how the license features work. Patches or some kind of explanatory > text that I can drop into the handbook are a must. ACCEPT_LICENSE is documented in `man make.conf`. package.license is documented in `man portage`. Also see http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0023.html .
So, portage with ACCEPT_LICENSE support went stable...
portage should emit a sentence about how to 'fix' packages when blocked for licenses. i.e.: Package blocked because license "GPL" not in ACCEPT_LICENSE. See make.conf(5) man page for more information.
I took the time to come up with ACCEPT_LICENSE info for the Portage handbook. I talked about which Portage version supports 'em, where to find 'em, how to set 'em, and more. I also added a bit to the "masked packages" section on dealing with stuff that's license-masked, like Skype. We should be good to go, so . . . closing.
