On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Gary O'Neall <gary@...> wrote:

This + is a suffix and not a freestanding character, right?
So "GPL-2.0+" is valid but "GPL-2.0 +" would not be valid?

My interpretation of the spec "GPL-2.0 +" and "GPL-2.0+" are both syntactically
valid (as well as MIT+, LicenseRef-21+ and any other listed license ID or
licenseRef). This is not any statement on the interpretation, just the license
expression syntax (I'll leave the interpretation discussions to a separate thread).
In general, I would prefer any operator character(s) to be excluded from the
allowed characters for a license reference to keep the parsing clear and
easier to implement.

Gary, I cannot envision a simpler implementation than splitting on spaces.

A plus sign specified as a suffix that is not attached to a license key would
no longer be a suffix to me, but something entirely different.

My interpretation of the spec is that the + sign must be attached to the license
key and all examples provided in the spec support this interpretation.
If that part is not clear, let's fix the spec. This is not something frozen.

Now that said, I do not like the plus at all and we should remove entirely from
the spec.

--
Cordially
Philippe Ombredanne