If the idea is really to hunt down every license lurking in
every potentially popular public package, I can see how
distro adoption's a real big deal. Congrats! I worry about
more work for distro people, but suppose those chasing
completeness goals like this likely have financial support.

On the process front, three ideas:

First, separate processes for "I've got a license and
champion its identification" from "I spotted a license and
think SPDX may not have it already". Create a separate
intake track for the latter, I imagine often distro people.
This would unburden those submitting just to replace
exceptions with IDs someday. They may otherwise have nothing
to say about terms, beyond what the words are and where they
found them. Put their "sightings" in a separate queue and
let people who care take them up for full submission. Those
can be people more invested in process and criteria.

Second, seriously consider requiring only text for
submissions up front, with XML coding if and when the
license moves forward. Grokking the schema and overcoming
validation errors takes time, even for the XML-astute. I see
the benefits for the tech team in the end. I also see
temptation to use the burden as a general brake on
submissions, or as a backhand "do you really care?" test.
But I don't see XML mattering to the identification
question. It becomes worthwhile only once a license gets
voted in. At that point, well versed SPDX people may be more
inclined to do in five what can take new people an hour.

Third, create a new "provisional" license status and
identify licenses awaiting significance there. Essentially
let folks call dibs on IDs. Supplement with a guideline on
to prefer prefixes like `Apache` to collision-prone
initialisms like `APSL`. Publish the list JSON with a
provisional flag, so implementers can then decide whether to
validate provisionals or not, like they choose for
deprecated. Give provisionals a holding period, say a couple
years, then either promote or deprecate. Think Lanham Act
supplemental register for lawyers, merge-behind-feature-flag
for coders.

On a personal note, I hope I can be honest about my
motivation without coming over blunt. I'm not in
license-list-XML helping clear backlog, even though I
maintain several projects using IDs, because I'm not
interested in a process that I _do_ see as passing
judgments, "approving" more than merely identifying. The
very thrust of this e-mail chain is more effectively shooing
away drafters deemed vain and projects deemed insubstantial.
Those are value judgments.

Value judgments make assessments eat more time. They open
them to controversy. They ask more of reviewers, which
contributes to backlog. I wouldn't expect reordering factors
in the factor test to change that.

If SPDX doesn't want to identify new licenses it doesn't
like, or wants to use its adoption as leverage to discourage
new forms, it should come out and say that. Those of us
building with broader needs can fork or superset.

--
Kyle Mitchell, attorney // Oakland // (510) 712 - 0933