-----Original Message-----
From: Spdx-legal@... <Spdx-legal@...> On Behalf Of Gary O'Neall
Sent: Monday, September 5, 2022 1:59 PM
To: 'J Lovejoy' <opensource@...>; 'SPDX-legal' <spdx-legal@...>
Subject: Re: for discussion: when can people start using short ids?

My vote is for #1 - The SPDX tools only uses the released license lists. If someone uses an ID before it is released, it may not pass validation.

I'm OK with #2 with the understanding that other tools may not understand the license ID's until the release.

I'm very much not in favor of #3, - before merging, you may find issues in the CI checks for the license XML (e.g. the text matches an existing license).

Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: Spdx-legal@... <Spdx-legal@...> On Behalf
Of J Lovejoy
Sent: Monday, September 5, 2022 1:03 PM
To: SPDX-legal <spdx-legal@...>
Subject: for discussion: when can people start using short ids?

Hi all,

From our last call, the subject of 'when can people start using short
ids? ‘ came up. This has been asked before on individual license
submissions and we have answered informally, but it might be helpful
to have a more official stance and document it somewhere.

The options I can see are and my thoughts on each:

1) Once the new license and id appear on the SPDX License List after
the next release
JL: this can require a long wait, as our release cycle is quarterly.
Personally, I think this is too long for many people who are motivated
to start using the short id (which is often why they have submitted a
license to SPDX to begin
with)

2) Once the PR for the new license has been merged
JL: This makes a lot of sense, as once a PR has been merged, it’s
HIGHLY unlikely that something would change after that; it’s
ostensibly waiting in the queue to become part of the official next
release. Downside, is that creating the files can take some time; on
the other hand, if the submitter is really in a hurry, they have the
ability to create the files themselves, and then it’s just a matter of an SPDX-legal person merging it.

3) Once the license submission has been noted as accepted in the Issue
and all the fields have been sorted using our new decision template
JL: This would be the earliest point in time, which might be nice for
the submitter, although it sort of frustrates any motivation for the
submitter to help with creating the PR. It would also mean more care
taken before marking a license as accepted, especially as relates to
choosing a short id (not necessarily a bad thing). We have
occasionally realized things after the Issue is marked as accepted, in
the making of the files for the PR, so this is the risk here.


Cheers,
Jilayne