License not autodetected by Github and not registered in SPDX

[cthoyt]

It would be helpful if the LICENSE for this repository reflected a widely known license that github could automatically detect and could be annotated with a SPDX identifier

[coolharsh55]

DPVCG uses the well known W3C licenses, which are widely known and are used in all W3C standards produced e.g. CSS uses this license - https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/blob/main/LICENSE.md, HTML accessibility (ARIA) uses it https://github.com/w3c/html-aria/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md, and EPUB https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/blob/main/LICENSE.md

The license should be added to SPDX rather than changing it in W3C repositories. It should also be automatically detected by Github based for the same reasons. It might be worthwhile opening an issue a https://github.com/w3c/licenses for this.

(note: this issue is out of scope for this group to determine as the license is pre-determined under W3C policy https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/cla/; let me know how I can support to get the licenses added/detected)

[cthoyt]

if it's the case that this is a well-known license, can you tell me what it's called?

[coolharsh55]

if it's the case that this is a well-known license, can you tell me what it's called?

W3C Software and Document License.

[bact]

https://spdx.org/licenses/ listed three W3C licenses, together with their SPDX license identifiers:

• W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31) - W3C
• W3C Software Notice and License (1998-07-20) - W3C-19980720
• W3C Software Notice and Document License (2015-05-13) - W3C-20150513

It is however does not have the latest Software and Document license - 2023 version.

[bact]

@cthoyt please follow up at spdx/license-list-XML#2600

[bact]

Based on a comment by an SPDX License List maintainer, here spdx/license-list-XML#2600 (comment) - the "W3C Software and Document license 2023" (in the LICENSE.md) is considered the same as W3C-20150513, which is listed in the SPDX License List.

[bact]

Btw, we may like to consider to reformat our LICENSE.md, as currently the paragraphs with indents are rendered as "code" with very long unwrapped lines - like this:

These paragraphs were actually bullets in the original license text.

I put PR #196 to restore the formatting.

Or alternatively, we can have a LICENSE.md that contains just a short sentence, stating the name of the license, and a link to the actual license. Like one at https://github.com/w3c/html-aria/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md

[coolharsh55]

Thanks @bact