Request for permission to use the GitHub workflow YAML files under a range of open-source licences

[james-cnz]

Hi @jrfnl,

I've written a PHPCS standard, and I'd like to run automated checks on it. I think the easiest way would be to copy the PHPCSExtra GitHub YAML files. But I'd also like to licence my standard under a range of open-source licences (GPL v3 or later, LGPL v3 or later, BSE 3 clause, and CC BY-SA v4 or later). I was wondering if I could get permission to use the YAML files under all these licences? Just the YAML files, not any of the actual sniff code.

[jrfnl]

@james-cnz Thanks for opening this issue and asking for permission

As for the actual question, I need to have a think about that.

The YAML files are not part of the code being distributed via this package, so in essence, they are not part of the package.

Having said that, all code in this repo in licensed under LGPL v3 and I'm not inclined to permit use or re-licensing in a way which would violate my copyright, or would conflict with the original LGPL license, as it could come back to bite me.

Licensing under GPL v3 is a definite no-go. And I'm not so sure about CC BY-SA either.

Then again, aside from the parts of the workflows which have already been turned into re-usable workflows, which you can just use, I can barely imagine that the workflows would be usable by any other standard without quite some customization and the building blocks of the workflows are commonly used action runners and such and not really subject to copyright.

It's the accumulated knowledge and experience which has been encoded in the workflows, which is what you really need, but that is not something easily transferable and without that, maintaining the workflows once you have copied them and adjusted them will be hard anyhow.

So, I'd like to ask you the following:

• Why do you want to license under a range of open source licenses instead of choosing just one ?
• How do you envision yourself maintaining the workflows in your repo in the future (given a hypothetical situation in which I would give permission)?

[james-cnz]

Hi @jrfnl,

Thanks, I wasn't aware there were reusable workflows. It sounds like that would be a better option. I wanted to release under several licences so the project could be incorporated into another one at some later stage, if someone wanted to do that. As to how I'd maintain the workflows, I don't have a plan. I was just hoping I'd be able to figure out what I needed on the fly if things broke.