Bug 499049

The spec file is not available. Also, this package should be named expatimpl (with a -devel subpackage that contains the headers).

* Would be fine to name it "ExpatImpl" with no main package but a -devel subpackage. There are no guidelines that require the name to be converted to lower-case.


* Licensing situation is unclear. Upstream .zip doesn't contain or mention the BSD licence that is specified in the .spec file. There's just a copyright notice in the single C++ header file. In the upstream msg boards the authors writes:

| By definition, all code posted to CodeProject is free to use.
| These days I use the BSD non-adware license.
| So feel free to use the code as you wish.
|
| [...]
|
| Tim Smith

"Free to use" doesn't imply "BSD".

Though, if you choose the BSD licence for the Fedora package, an added explanation would be good.

(In reply to comment #2)
> * Would be fine to name it "ExpatImpl" with no main package but a -devel
> subpackage. There are no guidelines that require the name to be converted to
> lower-case.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/NamingGuidelines#Case_Sensitivity

although in this case the name of the tarball is ExpatImpl and thus ExpatImpl is OK to use as the package name.

To the first point: doesn't this package include a library of some sort?

> * Licensing situation is unclear. Upstream .zip doesn't contain or mention the
> BSD licence that is specified in the .spec file. There's just a copyright
> notice in the single C++ header file. In the upstream msg boards the authors
> writes:
> 
> | By definition, all code posted to CodeProject is free to use.
> | These days I use the BSD non-adware license.
> | So feel free to use the code as you wish.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Tim Smith
> 
> "Free to use" doesn't imply "BSD".
> 
> Though, if you choose the BSD licence for the Fedora package, an added
> explanation would be good.  

"Free to use" doesn't imply distributability either. Unless upstream puts a clear license in the tarball (or state that the code is public domain), there's no way this package will be included in Fedora. A message board message is not enough.

> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/NamingGuidelines#Case_Sensitivity

As I wrote before, the guidelines do not require the package to get a lower-case name. The "ExpatImpl" spelling is used also throughout the C++ header file, in the header filename, and in the wrapper class name. And btw, the Expat project refers to itself as "Expat". ;)

> "Free to use" doesn't imply distributability either.

Let me repeat from my previous comment: Licensing situation is unclear.

Sorry for the delay, but I've been trying to reach the author for license clarification.  No response yet, and I see other unanswered attempts on the message board to get a clear statement out of the author.  I'm going to consider my options, but at this point I guess we have to consider this review dead in the water on legal grounds. :-(

With regards to comment #1, the spec file link now works.  Also, this package does not include a library of any kind.  It is purely a header file that maps the C expat headers into C++ classes with inline code.

And, finally, it's really old and doesn't include a bunch of stuff from newer versions of expat.  Given all that, I'm really tempted to write my own and give it a real open source license.

Give me a couple of days to think this over.  If I decide to go with writing my own, I'll close this review bug.  Thanks for the comments.

Forget this package.  There's a much better, more up-to-date, and definitely free C++ wrapper for expat.  I'll port the application I'm working with over to that wrapper.  See bug #499913 for more information.