Template talk:Infobox software licence

What does "FSF Approved" mean?
This template has a parameter for marking a license as "FSF approved". The FSF doesn't approve licenses, at least not in the formal way that the OSI does, so what guidance should we offer on how to set this? RossPatterson 23:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The FSF has a page that lists licenses . They are categorized in GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses, GPL-Incompatible Free Software Licenses, Non-Free Software Licenses. FSF approved means that the FSF says that the license in the template is a free software license. There is not an approval process like OSI does, you can't submit new licenses to be approved, so what about changing the name in "FSF says this is a free software license" --Argento3 14:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sure, but can we find a way to say it that's shorter? Maybe just "Free Software"? RossPatterson 22:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Free Software (with a link to the Free Software Definition) is ok for me, it's more consistent with the FSF naming, approved is more OSI-like. --Argento3 23:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool. Done.  RossPatterson 00:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this was the right decision. Not everyone agrees with the FSF's definition of free software.  For instance, some people go by the DFSG instead.  I think it should go back to FSF-approved. Superm401 - Talk 07:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * ACK. With the difference that it should not state yes or no but free or non-free. The FSF doesn't certificate licenses, but divides them into these categories. Same as Debian-Legal.--Trac3R (talk) 11:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What about FSF "Free Software" (including the quotes)? That mentions both that it's FSF criteria, and that it's "Free Software" qualification by the relevant criteria. - Apotheon (talk) 20:59, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Approvals not NPOV?
After seeing this template in use at BSD licenses, it occurs to me that the colored backgrounds for the approval elements are biased towards the idea the approvals are good and non-approvals are bad. That appears to be a violation of the NPOV policy. RossPatterson 23:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, most (Americans?) associate red with bad and green with good. But I also think that we need some sort of method of distinguishing these attributes based on color. Maybe black and white or some other scheme of opposing colors not associated with any concepts.--Cogburnd02 15:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, I don't think we need coloring at all. Least of all red/green, which has bias connotations and which can't be discriminated by 10% of the male population. But I see now that the coloring doesn't come from this template, but rather from the yes and no templates that this one asks people to use. I'm going to change a few to simply "yes" and "no" and see how it looks.  RossPatterson 21:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Compatibility with proprietary code
It would be useful to note if the license allows derivatives to be proprietary. By the way, LGPL doesn't have this infobox. --Macrakis 21:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * LGPL is Done, and GPL too. RossPatterson 22:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Compatitbility with GPL 2 or 3?
I see that Apache License has used this template with  GPL compatible = Yes - GPLv3 . That brings up an interesting point - is it worth having two fields, one for GPL2 and one for GPL3? Increased compatility was, of course, a GPL3 design goal. RossPatterson 22:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Common Public License has something similar. RossPatterson 22:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I support this. If no one objects, it should be added.  GPLv2 will remain an important license for the forseeable future, and GPLv3 is quickly becoming one. Superm401 - Talk 07:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Debian doesn't approve licenses
According to the Debian License information page, Debian doesn't approve licenses: "Lists are maintained by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Please note however, that the Debian project decides on particular packages rather than licenses in abstract, and the lists are general explanations. It is possible to have a package containing software under a 'free' license with some other aspect that makes it non-free. Sometimes, debian-legal comments on a license in abstract, not applied to any particular software. While these discussion can suggest possible problems, often no firm answers can be reached until some specific software is examined." So what does "Debian approved" mean in this context? RossPatterson 00:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thumperward's rewrite to use the infobox template changed "Debian approved" to "DFSG compatible", which neatly resolves this question. Thanks!  RossPatterson (talk) 15:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't take the credit for this one, I'm afraid: User:NeutralPoint fixed it here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright
The copyright field is quite ambiguous when on the actual license page. Many people are going to think it describes the kind of license, not the copyright on the text of the license. What it is actually meant to describe is not all that important. Almost all licenses are copyrighted by their author, and allow you to reproduce their text. I suggest this field be removed. Superm401 - Talk 07:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I put it there because it is important to know if derivative licenses are possible. --Argento3 (talk) 13:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that's useful information, but I still think it's misleading to put in the infobox. Superm401 - Talk 13:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I just changed it to say Publisher. ViperSnake151 15:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

url?
Any objection to adding a  parameter? TJRC (talk) 00:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I've added the slightly broader, for use with licenses which may have whole sites and not just (or maybe instead of) canonical URLs. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. TJRC (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Linking/Copyleft
The difference between the permission to linking with libs that use different licenses and copyleft is exactly... what? Maybe one of that fields should be thrown out as redundant. --Trac3R (talk) 11:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The LGPL is both (weakly) copyleft and linkable as a library with software that is distributed under a different license, at least in theory. - Apotheon (talk) 15:53, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

My edit message was wrong.
I accidentally said "not a neologism" when cleaning up after Palosirkka. I should have said: Someone who wants to know if a particular program does not want to look to see if it is open source and is not copyleft. They just want to know: "is this software free?". IMHO forcing users to invert copyleft is wrong. Furthermore some licenses may not be copyleft but also may not be copyfree. Even more, copyleft itself is redundant with the contents of the license itself (that was a joke). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voomoo (talk • contribs) 19:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The "copyfree" label in the infobox really needs to be a bluelink somewhere, otherwise it looks like either a neologism (or at best a WP-centric term even if the idea exists in the real world) or some idea/term that isn't notable (and therefore doesn't merit inclusion). If the reader can't immediately understand or at least learn what the label means, there's no sense including it. DMacks (talk) 20:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Templates have long confused me but making it a link to copyfree would be a good idea.
 * Looking at the history of copyfree, it was deleted several years ago per Articles for deletion/Copyfree. A few months later, it was created as a redirect to Permissive free software license. Over the past week, Palosirkka has tried several times to flag that redirect for lack of notability, and now finally succeeding in having it deleted by tagging it as db-repost. A redirect to a closely related topic is not what was deleted originally (though the original AFD concluded "delete" not "redirect", however the close relation of the ideas was mentioned there). Thanks for alerting User:Fastily, who acted on that tag, Voomoo. DMacks (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been meaning to write a good article about copyfree but have not had the time to write a non-stub article. Copyfree is used by more than "just a few people" for a specific, standard idea. At this point the best article is "Permissive free software license" although it is not the exact meaning. IMHO providing some kind of data that "this license meets the copyfree requirements" is useful even if we do use that exact term. I just can't think of a better one.
 * One reason "Permissive free software license" is not the exact meaning is the fact that copyfree licensing is not limited in scope to software. I cannot think of a better way to point out that a license meets the requirements of copyfree licensing without using the term "copyfree" for obvious reasons, by the way. - Apotheon (talk) 02:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Please be aware that there used to be a copyfree [age, but ti was delete based on considered consensus. See Articles_for_deletion/Copyfree. Unless you have persuasive counter-arguments to the points raise there, a new article is also likely to be deleted. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The "considered consensus" at the time largely consisted of four or five active members of the Wikipedia editors' community who couldn't actually agree on a reason it should be deleted, as far as I recall. - Apotheon (talk) 02:45, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Voomoo, my point is exactly what Stuartyeates above said. Palosirkka (talk) 06:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I have not seen the seen the original article. From what I could from the AfD the problems included "Reads like a Advertisment", "WP:DICTDEF", and an incorrect statement that the word is a neologism. I have considered asking an administrator to provide me to the contents of the original article so I know what to avoid, but as I said I don't have time. Furthermore that took place during August 2008, and since then the word has become more widely understood. If you follow various licensing mailing lists the word is used and not defined quite often. IMHO the mark of a "commonly understood word" within a discipline is just that, when it no longer needs to be defined upon use. That said perhaps there is not much more to be said about copyfree beyond its definition,  in which case an article would not be required or allowed. However, the use of the word on the template is still correct and should probably link to Wiktionary or even the official copyfree page. Please don't confuse the AfD conclusion of a single badly written article with the concept and word itself. Thanks!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voomoo (talk • contribs) 17:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment regarding the original AfD - note that CSD #G4 (Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion.) explicitly excludes "pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version". In other words, a fully rewritten version that is not an advert for copyfree.org would not qualify for deletion due to the original AfD (fyi: the only sources in the original article were copyfree.org and two forum posts). Normally, new drafts are done in userspace so that it can be verified to be substantially different before going back into article space.
 * Useful knowledge. I may still request a copy of the old text just to make sure I don't write the same thing over.
 * Have you checked Deletionpedia? - Apotheon (talk) 02:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note also that the original AfD did not address converting the article to a redirect - so G4 wouldn't apply. If other CSD reasons and prods are disputed, then the redirect would need to go through WP:RFD to be deleted if there's belief that it's not an appropriate redirect. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:26, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * This discussion centers around whether we should be including a useful comment relating to what rights are granted in a license in the infobox, not the original article. As far as I could tell Palosirkka has only commented on an old AfD. If there are no serious objections I'm going to restore the copyfree status to the template in a few days Voomoo (talk) 01:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There are serious objections to adding a redundant neologism. If readded, it will be reverted again. I hope you would rather discuss this issue here. Palosirkka (talk) 09:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Please stop incorrectly calling the word a neologism. You are doing a disservice to wikipedia. I strongly suggest you actually do some research before continuing
 * Regarding redundant - which term thus far explains which licenses are copyfree? Copyfree is not just "not copyleft", it implies nearly complete freedom. There are non-copyleft non-copyfree licenses.
 * I am discussing this issue here, which is why I said in a few days if no one other than you objects I will re add. If you then remove, I'll consider it vandalism. Voomoo (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment (1): The OED says a neologism is A word or phrase which is new to the language; one which is newly coined. Copyfree is not in the OED (or any other notable dictionary that I'm aware of, making it a neologism. Neologisms can be notable, of course, but are not automatically notable (see Neologism). A consensus was reached that Copyfree was not notable. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * In my opinion a word is no longer 'new' when it does not have to be defined upon use. Waiting for dictionaries to catch up is silly. They should be used for descriptive purposes (I heard of this word, what does it mean?) not prescriptive purposes (it is not in the dictionary so it isn't real) Voomoo (talk) 15:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. But your definition makes "copyfree" certainly a 'new' word. Palosirkka (talk) 06:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Please elaborate. This objection doesn't make much sense to me, as written.  How does Voomoo's definition make copyfree a "new word"? - Apotheon (talk) 03:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If we're going by popular dictionary definitions, "copyleft" as employed here is also a neologism, because its definition diverges from the popular dictionary definition. - Apotheon (talk) 02:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Quick, Palosirkka, delete the Memoization page. I don't think that term appears in any of the big-name dictionaries of the English language, including the OED. - Apotheon (talk) 03:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment (2): I personally find it questionable whether we should be adding info to info boxes when that info/topic has previously been found to be non-notable.  Stuartyeates (talk) 21:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Three years ago relating to an article I don't think any of us have seen. Since then the concept has become more widely understood.
 * Finally, the info box should provide some method of indicating "this software is completely free without restriction on usage, modification, or distribution". I don't care if the word we use is "copyfree", "freshmenglin", "applepearorangemango" or even spelling out the entire phrase. It happens to be that we have a widely understood word spelled "copyfree" but that isn't critical. Can you propose something better? Voomoo (talk) 15:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * (a) Please don't make comments about what some of us have or haven't seen without direct knowledge / references, some of us have been kicking around here for a while. (b) I disagree with your apparent stance that copyfree isn't a neologism. (c) I disagree with your statement the info box should provide some method of indicating "this software is completely free without restriction on usage, modification, or distribution" (d) I strongly disagree with using that as a plank to put a URL to a third party site on many pages. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Regarding b and d: This happens to be the best way I was aware of to indicate such a stance. If the word "copyfree" or a link to the website is not appropriate I'll try to think of a different way of phrasing the idea. I'm sorry if this seemed spammy. Regarding c: how then are people supposed to know which software is completely free? There are many people who depend on only using such software and avoid using distribution restricted or other less free software and it is a good idea to indicate which software meets the "no restrictions" criteria. I'd almost say that the word "restrictionless" is better than "copyfree" but I could see it being misinterpreted. What do you mean by (a)? There is a reason I said "don't think". I've been around wikipedia for years but I have not seen the original article. Please don't get sidetracked by an irrelevant argument. The question here is: how is the best way to convey useful information to the ordinary wikipedia user? I am open to suggestions and am willing to change the text used (as I've stated multiple times). Voomoo (talk) 01:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * We already have OSI, Debian and FSF approvals and copyleft status describing the freeness of a license, I think that's quite enough. We don't want the template to become too long, unclear and unwieldy. Not to mention redundant. I think it's better we let "copyfree" rest, if you disagree with this you should start working on the copyfree article. Palosirkka (talk) 06:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how it is redundant. We do not yet tell the user which licenses are restriction free. The debian, OSI, and FSF all allow some restrictions. If anything we should remove one of the existing approvals for being "too similar" (that was a joke). As I've said many times in this thread we *don't* need to include the word "Copyfree" and any other word that means the same thing is fine. Which item in the current list means "this license has the same effective copyright requirements as something in the public domain does" or "this software is completely free without restriction on usage, modification, or distribution" or "this license is copyfree" or anything similar? As of this time we just don't have that.
 * Perhaps in order to make the template less unclear we should have an "approvals" or "endorsements" line and add a list afterword? I don't think this is the best idea but it may address that concern. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voomoo (talk • contribs) 15:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The debate about what freedom and restriction looks like for software is at least a decade old. This copyfree notion appears to be a non-notable newcomer. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Is it "non-notable" to you because you do not like how it diverges from the very redundant function of the OSI, DFSG, and Free Software definitions? In all this "discussion", neither you nor Palosirkka has actually addressed the matter of how to convey information conveyed by the term "copyfree" here, given that this information is distinct from the roughly synonymous information conveyed by those other three compliance statements.  It's worth noting that "copyleft", for instance, serves a distinct purpose from OSI/DFSG/FSD in a way that none of those three serves a particularly distinct purpose from the others apart from establishing terminology biases. - Apotheon (talk) 03:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Copyfree was found to be non-notable at the recent Articles for deletion/Copyfree. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:26, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So, lets forget about the word "copyfree" for now which appears to be clouding the issue. A newcomer to the licensing issue only cares about "do I have rights equivalent to the public domain?" It is only after learning about the silly debate of calling software "free" or "non-free" do they care about the other (redundant) and misleading definitions.
 * Can you please supply a phrase or term which best conveys "this software is as free as it gets" or "no right of yours is restricted by this license"? Voomoo (talk) 01:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * "Recent"? That's a laugh.  It was deleted for non-notability when fewer people called it non-notable than complained about its presentation, about a third of Wikipedia's life ago.  Your definition of "recent" is laughable, in context.  Things change.  I suppose if someone had created a Barack Obama article in 2005 and it got deleted later that same year for non-notability, you'd object to other articles referring to him in 2008 when he was elected President because his article was "recently" deleted for not being "notable" in 2005.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apotheon (talk • contribs) 15:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If you believe the concept of copyfree is notable, I encourage you get it undeleted via the WP:UNDELETE process. I would have no problem the a link to a copyfree wikipedia article appearing in the template alongside the existing links, it's specifically the external link I have a issue with. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So something like "unrestricted" would be okay? I couldn't think of a better word than copyfree but other words would be fine by me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Voomoo (talk • contribs) 21:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems like what Stuartyeates said suggests undeletion or creation of a new copyfree article would be the appropriate approach, rather than using less well-defined terms. I'm inclined to agree, but my Wikipedia community involvement is pretty off-and-on in general.  What about your previous comments about how you were considering the creation of a new article for copyfree policy, Voomoo?  If I happen to notice you've started such a thing, I'd be happy to contribute to it.  Notice that neither of the people objecting to use of the "copyfree" term has yet responded positively to your attempts to compromise by way of a different term like "unrestricted". - Apotheon (talk) 18:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Template should not add categories automatically
This template adds articles automatically to Category:Free and open-source software licenses. In general have categories added manually is a bad thing. It leads to too many misclassifications. So unless there's a really good reason to keep the automatic category inclusion, I suggest we remove it. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Can you give an example where this has caused problems? Belorn (talk) 06:59, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ubuntu (typeface)... it's a font with a redirect to the article. Somebody used the template on the article and already included the category on the redirect. As a font, this article does not logically belong in the category. This type of problem is always a danger with automatic categorization. There's really no reason to use it unless they are for grouping articles that use the template itself. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Not only that, but the way it was coded introduced unwanted extra whitespace below the template. I've removed the auto-categorisation per WP:TEMPLATECAT. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: remove "copyfree"
"Copyfree" is not a common criterion for evaluating software licences.

More precisely, the term is unknown and has no widespread use and it seems this template is being abused as a stage to promote it.

(Update: I clicked around the website . The "support" page lists no supporters and the "projects" page just lists a script for comparing licences and a note about wanting to find time to work on the web site.  I think this violates WP:SOAP.)

. Gronky (talk) 20:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd assumed this had already been removed. It's gone now anyway. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It had been removed, argued about, and re-added when no substantive arguments in favor of removal could be supported by the people in favor of removing it at the time. - Apotheon (talk) 19:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * By the way, "support" is not the same as "supporters", so I'm not sure why the fact the support page lists no supporters is a problem, and I'm confused by the fact you apparently only saw one line of text on the "projects" page. - Apotheon (talk) 19:56, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * If it comes to dealing with history, copyfree licenses exist much longer than copyleft licenses. Especially in the camp of *BSD-using people it might be way more common to release and distribute code under a copyfree license. I fail to see how this criterion is of no relevance for wiki and also fail to see how publishing information about this would be violating WP:SOAP. -- 80.219.255.181 (talk) 20:35, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Question: remove "linking"?
As far as I can see, the "linking" field has no meaning. It should be given a meaning or removed.

Three flaws with the "linking" field:
 * The only valid value is "Yes"
 * It's clearly misunderstood since some licence pages have it set to "No"
 * "Linking" doesn't actually have any set meaning for anything that licences do or allow

I guess "linking" is supposed to be a reference to the linking stage in compilation, but licences and copyright law don't have requirements that are triggered by specific aspects of compilation. It could be used as a concrete example, but it should be clearer, and it would still run into the next problem...

The reason it's always "Yes" is that every licence can be mixed with code under some other licences. GPLv3 is restrictive in some ways, but it can still be mixed with Apache 2.0, MPL 2.0, revised BSD, MIT/X11, and most other permissive simple licences.

Can this field be fixed or is the idea just beyond repair? Gronky (talk)


 * FSF has since long ago asserted that an executable which uses a linked library is an derivative work of the linked software (see GNU General Public License. Thanks to this and that one (or more) licenses explicitly allows "linking" as an exception, has made "linking" a debated (WP:notable) subject with a special legal meaning. Thus this "meaning" exist, even if copyright law itself do not mention it. It would be up to a judge/jury to decide what is or is not a derivative work.


 * This however does not prevent people for mixing code with different licenses. It only effect what license the resulted work as a whole will be under. If you combine GPLv3 code, and some Apache 2.0 code, the result normally need to be under GPLv3 as it would be a derived work of the GPLv3 code. This is true in a "legal" context even if the GPLv3 code is 10% of the work, and the Apache 2.0 code is 90% of the work. Belorn (talk) 09:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In other words, it's a flag for "virality". To be honest I think we can do away with it, as it's simply too confusing. Does the existence of the GPL linking exception mean the GPL gets a "sometimes" in here, for instance? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Like law in general, everything is "sometimes/it depends", but in practice GPL itself does not allow linking if those works are not compatible with GPL. One can add additional permissions to GPL, and one of those is a linking exception, but that does not change what GPL is. Now you can have personal opinion that this is a crime ("virality") of nature, next to murdering small kittens and stealing candy from babies, but that has little to do with this discussion.
 * A better question would be if removing this field would effect many articles. Permissive license articles is unlikely to be effected at all. Some copyleft license articles would be effected, but not all. As far I know, there is no proprietary license articles that is using this template. The total ones using this field is thus: CeCILL, Eclipse Public License, European Union Public Licence, SLUC, and GPL/AGPL.
 * Thus, Please argue based on wikipedia policy and not how your personal opinion about how good, bad, wrong, moral, ethical, green, blue or orange this field is for you. It is not confusing simply because licenses allow additional permissions to be added. It is not "always yes" because you can combine works under compatible licenses. One can argue that its a rare attribute. One can argue that the field only effects copyleft licenses and add an unnecessary field for other licenses, but keep fuzzy personal opinions outside the discussion and discuss based on facts, and policy. Belorn (talk) 00:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * (Your description of licence compatibility isn't quite correct. See below.)
 * The problem I see is that the field name "Linking" doesn't tell the reader much, and more importantly, the value "Yes", "No", or a few words, isn't enough to tell the reader anything either. Licence compatibility isn't a feature that a licence has or hasn't.  It's complex and has to be dealt with in the article body rather than the infobox.
 * The only way to use this field correctly would be to set the value in each article to "Linking: depends", with the exception of the short permissive licences, but they don't use this field, and it would just be redundant because the job is already fulfilled by "Copyleft: No". Can you explain the utility of the "Linking" field?  I'd remove the field, and concentrate on each article having a good "Compatibility with other licences" section.
 * (A clarification to your first comment: when you mix code under different licences, the combined work is not under one licence. If you mix GPLv3 code and Apache 2.0 code, the result is not GPLv3.  The result is that you have to comply with both sets of conditions.
 * Some people then make the mistake of saying that one licence, such as GPLv3, contains a superset of the terms of the other licence, which would mean that the combined work is as-if it were under the GPLv3. This is untrue for GPLv3 since it allows certain additional terms to be added (section 7).  So Apache 2.0 can contain conditions that are not in the set of terms of GPLv3, and the combination can still be compatible.) Gronky (talk) 00:34, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

New field request: SPDX code
I believe it would be useful to have a new field named SPDX code to hold the related SPDX license code. There is a trend toward using these standardized codes when discussing software licenses. In addition, they are somewhat machine readable (using grep for instance) in source code and text-based documentation. With best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 08:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Reference to a license's SPDX identifier (as is the proper name) makes sense to me too. I've given it a shot in the template sandbox, see example for GNU GPL on the testcases page. Looks a bit exhaustive on the GPL (as it has both version and "or later" complications), suggestions welcome, also speak up if anyone opposes to adding it in the first place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirkgaard (talk • contribs) 17:23, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

If only we could linkify it, but I can't see how to do that without either making a new template or duplicating the existing code. &mdash;SamB (talk) 22:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

New field suggestion: Free Cultural Works approved
Some software licenses, such as GPLv3.0 and the BSD license family, are approved as meeting the Definition of Free Cultural Works, as described here: [1]. I suggest to add this as a new, optional Yes/No field. NicolausPrime (talk) 21:58, 1 January 2024 (UTC)