rust-lang repos that do not declare licenses

[brson]

It came up today that kate-config does not have a license file. I filed a PR to fix that, but there are others.

• crates.io-index - I'm not sure if this needs a copyright license since it isn't a work of creative expression, but it might still be worth putting something explicit in there just to fend off questions. Maybe there's some sort of 'open-data' license that's appropriate. https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index/issues/3
• blog.rust-lang.org
• This repo needs LICENSE/COPYING, also README blog.rust-lang.org#63 CC-BY suggested
• regex - Declared in Cargo.toml but no accompanying license files. has dual Apache+MIT
• rfcs - This is a mess. It should have the MIT/ASL license per our other docs but we didn't have the foresight to do it. - Does this repo need a LICENSE or COPYING file? rfcs#1259
• rust-buildbot - now dual-licensed
• meeting-minutes - Doesn't matter probably.
• rust-www - This is tricky. It contains a COPYRIGHT file, but I believe we put it there to have a license to link to for Rust itself. We can probably argue that the entire website falls under that license.
• Add Apache and MIT license texts? prev.rust-lang.org#174
• rust.vim - Please add a LICENSE file rust.vim#45
• rust-mode - Please add a LICENSE file rust-mode#91
• rust-packaging - contains licenses now
• gedit-config - dual-licensed (abandoned)
• rustup - rustup.sh itself contains the license, but not the rest. and repo contains both license files
• rust-installer - ditto
• rust-wiki-backup - decommissioned partially because it was not properly licensed (archived)
• rust-guidelines - repo was decommissioned and moved
• nano-config - Only contains copyright notice, not license Has both licenses (archived)
• zsh-config (archived)

Update:

• docker-rust
• License the docker-rust repository under MIT/Apache-2.0 dual license docker-rust#207 - Adding License Statement (MIT and Apache) docker-rust#74
  • docker-rust-nightly (the repository has been archived, the licensing is now being done in docker-rust)
• crater mentions a license in README, even though the license files are not included in the repo
• bors: bootstrap commit
• surveys
  • License the surveys repository under the MIT/Apache-2.0 license surveys#267
  • Add MIT/Apache-2.0 license surveys#266
• rustc-perf
  • License the whole rustc-perf repository under the MIT license rustc-perf#1933
  • Add top-level license file rustc-perf#1881
• fmt-rfcs: Add a license statement to README and add LICENSE-* files style-team#174
• .github
• rust-lang.github.io
• https://github.com/rust-lang/project-rfc-2229 (archived)
• https://github.com/rust-lang/wg-debugging (archived)
• https://github.com/rust-lang/wg-cargo-std-aware
• https://github.com/rust-lang/wg-allocators
• https://github.com/rust-lang/moderation-team
• https://github.com/rust-lang/wg-incr-comp (archived)
• https://github.com/rust-lang/compiler-team-prioritization
• https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc-timing (archived)

[edunham]

• crates.io-index - I'm not sure if this needs a copyright license since it isn't a work of creative expression, but it might still be worth putting something explicit in there just to fend off questions. Maybe there's some sort of 'open-data' license that's appropriate. https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index/issues/3
• blog.rust-lang.org This repo needs LICENSE/COPYING, also README blog.rust-lang.org#63 CC-BY suggested
• regex - Declared in Cargo.toml but no accompanying license files. has dual Apache+MIT
• rfcs - This is a mess. It should have the MIT/ASL license per our other docs but we didn't have the foresight to do it. Does this repo need a LICENSE or COPYING file? rfcs#1259
• rust-buildbot - now dual-licensed
• meeting-minutes - Doesn't matter probably.
• rust-www - This is tricky. It contains a COPYRIGHT file, but I believe we put it there to have a license to link to for Rust itself. We can probably argue that the entire website falls under that license. Add Apache and MIT license texts?  prev.rust-lang.org#174
• rust.vim Please add a LICENSE file rust.vim#45
• rust-mode Please add a LICENSE file rust-mode#91
• rust-packaging - contains licenses now
• gedit-config - dual-licensed
• rustup - rustup.sh itself contains the license, but not the rest. and repo contains both license files
• rust-installer - ditto
• rust-wiki-backup - decommissioned partially because it was not properly licensed
• rust-guidelines - repo was decommissioned and moved
• nano-config - Only contains copyright notice, not license Has both licenses
• zsh-config - ditto

[emberian]

@edunham CC0 seems suitable for the crates.io-index, if anything.

[eshellman]

Maybe I missed something, but this repo (rust-lang/rust) is also missing a license file.

[steveklabnik]

@eshellman https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/master/LICENSE-APACHE and https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/master/LICENSE-MIT

[eshellman]

Not sure how I missed that. not enough coffee yet.

[sanmai-NL]

I would like to take this issue up again.

What is the status?
Where is help needed?

Specifically on [licenses and copyright claims repeated in source code files](e.g. [mk/main.mk]%28https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/a005b6785935d7e92e87774c8f585839ddd12e46/mk/main.mk#L1-L9%29), I hope we will soon make good improvement across the board. I propose that we remove them or reduce them to at most a single line.

Arguments

1. They hurt readability and conciseness;
2. They are a small extra hurdle to contributing changes (esp. from the GitHub web UI) since it makes you scroll down on every file;
3. Their use across source files violates the do-not-repeat-yourself principle;
4. Probably in large part due to the previous, they are undermaintained. E.g. something as basic as the year is messed up in a prominent place.

Issues, my positions on them
A. Who supports this position, that a single central license file in each repo should be used exclusively instead? I do, for sure. Only for GPL and/or mixed licensing it may be required to refer to the GPL again at the top of every file, but if we do then let us please use a one-line comment referring to the license file.

B. Who supports my position that a copyright claim is redundant, and that dating the copyright is even more redundant (certainly as the project keeps record using a VCS), and should be removed everywhere as a maintenance burden?

@brson: What has led to the situation that multiple licenses are applicable to the rust-lang code base? What can still be done to harmonize this to a single license?