[Catalog-sig] Restart discussion on GNU Public License with version classifiers

[Toshio Kuratomi]

In November of 2011 [1]_ we started talking about adding classifiers for the
GNU Public license family that included the version information.  I think we
decided that this had value but got caught up in bikeshedding the exact
format.  It would be nice to get this resolved and into pypi, though, so I'm
going to revive my proposal.

.. [1]_:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/catalog-sig/2011-November/004028.html

== New license classifiers ==

License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Lesser General Public License v2 (LGPLv2)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Lesser General Public License v3 (LGPLv3)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Lesser General Public License v2 or later (LGPLv2+)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Lesser General Public License v3 or later (LGPLv3+)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v3 (GPLv3)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v2 or later (GPLv2+)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v3 or later (GPLv3+)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Affero General Public License v3 or later (AGPLv3+)

== Current license classifier that won't be replaced ==

License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Affero General Public License v3

Should there be a version 4 of the AGPL we would add:

License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Affero General Public License v4 (AGPLv4)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Affero General Public License v4 or later (AGPLv4+)

== "Deprecated"[2]_ License classifiers ==

License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Free Documentation License (FDL)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License (GPL)
License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

.. [2]_: Deprecated doesn't have any real meaning as we won't get rid of them.
    We'll just be telling people to use the other classifiers should they ask.


== Alternatives ==

Last time there were discussions around whether to place the version
information in a subsequent field.  Despite the discussion about this,
a subsequent license has been added to the catalog where the version is
included in the main string [3]_.  The original reporter of the need for
versioned GPL tags also felt that having a 4th level would do less to
clarify the licensing intent than my proposal[4]_.

In writing this summary, I found that there hasn't been a solid proposal of
what the classifier for a borken out version would look like.  I can't think
of a good way to write one since I don't know how it would interact with the 
shortforms of the licenses (ex: LGPLv2).  If someone would like to make
a complete alternate proposal I just want to see this done so I'll offer
constructive criticism on it.


.. [3]:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/catalog-sig/2012-January/004186.html
.. [4]_:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/catalog-sig/2011-December/004078.html

-Toshio
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