Bug: Documentation licensed under non-OSS compatible license

[nzakas]

Background

We had a request to apply a license to our documentation, and even though this project is MIT licensed, I mistakenly thought that applied only to code and not to documentation. In fact, the MIT license specifically says that it also applies to the documentation (always read your licenses, folks!).

#17175 mentions that the CC license we applied is incompatible with open source licenses, which is true (verified by OpenJS legal). Some software scanners will flag this and mark the repo as not open source (technically incorrect, but scanners err on the side of false positives to be safe). Others can't contribute when there is a question about licensing.

So this was my mistake, and we should fix it ASAP.

Potential Solution

Because the MIT license actually does cover the documentation, the easiest path forward is to revert back to that and just make it clear by replacing all references to the CC license with references to the MIT license.

The steps would be:

1. Find all documentation-related commits since feat: docs license #17010 was merged.
2. Revert those documentation commits.
3. Revert feat: docs license #17010.
4. Ask people to resubmit the documentation from the removed commits.

It's kind of a pain, but it's the technically correct approach to this problem.

[nzakas]

@mdjermanovic interested to hear your thoughts on this.

[mdjermanovic]

If that's the technically correct approach to the problem, then we should do it.

We should probably also not merge any other documentation-related PRs until we finish step 3.

[mdjermanovic]

1. Find all documentation-related commits since feat: docs license #17010 was merged.

Commits that had changes in the docs/**/*.md files:

• 880a431 (feat: change default ignore pattern to **/node_modules/ in flat config #17184): docs: update flat config default ignore patterns #17258
• 94da96c (fix: unify LintMessage type #17076): docs: resubmit Custom Processors documentation #17265
• 7f183e0 (docs: Update triage process description #17157): docs: resubmit Manage Issues documentation #17266
• 69a19c8 (bot commit): 150a74b
• e52b98b (feat: add sourceCode property to the rule context #17107): docs: resubmit custom-rules doc changes #17294
• 1468f5b (feat: add physicalFilename property to the rule context #17111): docs: resubmit custom-rules doc changes #17294
• 0df4d4f (feat: add cwd to rule context #17106): docs: resubmit custom-rules doc changes #17294
• 52018f2 (feat: add filename to the rule context #17108): docs: resubmit custom-rules doc changes #17294
• 559ff4e (feat: add new omitLastInOneLineClassBody option to the semi rule #17105): docs: add new omitLastInOneLineClassBody option to the semi rule #17263
• af5fe64 (docs: Fix custom rule schema docs #17115) docs: resubmit pr 17115 doc changes #17291
• 4a352a9 (docs: explain how to include predefined globals #17114): docs: explain how to include predefined globals #17261
• 6987dc5 (docs: Fix formatting in Custom Rules docs #17097): docs: Resubmit Fix formatting in Custom Rules docs #17281
• 3f7af9f (feat: Implement SourceCode#markVariableAsUsed() #17086): docs: Resubmit markVariableAsUsed docs #17280
• d8e9887 (docs: Custom Rules cleanup/expansion #16906): docs: Resubmit custom rules update docs #17273
• 1fea279 (docs: Clarify how to add to tsc agenda #17084): docs: resubmit Manage Issues documentation #17266
• 970ef1c (direct commit): docs: resubmit Manage Issues documentation #17266
• 7162d34 (docs: Mention new config system is complete #17068): docs: resubmit Configuration Files documentation #17267
• a1d561d (feat: Move getDeclaredVariables and getAncestors to SourceCode #17059): docs: Resubmit getScope/getDeclaredVariables docs #17262
• c83531c (docs: Update/remove external links, eg. point to eslint-community #17061) docs: resubmit pr17061 doc changes #17292
• a3aa6f5 (docs: Clarify no-div-regex rule docs #17051): docs: Clarify no-div-regex rule docs (#17051) #17255
• da8d52a (docs: Removed the second object instance for the "no-new" rule #17020): docs: resubmit no-new rule documentation #17264
• 75339df (docs: fix typos and missing info #17029): docs: fix typos and missing info #17257
• ec2d830 (docs: Fixed typos in semi.md #17012) docs: resubmit pr17012 doc changes #17293
• 10022b1 (feat: Copy getScope() to SourceCode #17004): docs: Resubmit getScope/getDeclaredVariables docs #17262
• 1665c02 (feat: Use plugin metadata for flat config serialization #16992): docs: resubmit Create Plugins documentation #17268

[mdjermanovic]

Step 2: #17227

[nzakas]

We should probably also not merge any other documentation-related PRs until we finish step 3.

Definitely. Ideally, we put the new license notice in place and ask people on existing PRs to rebase on top of main so the lineage is clear.

[aladdin-add]

step 3: #17231

[nzakas]

TSC Summary: This issue outlines the steps needed to fix our documentation license issue.

TSC Question: What is the plan for making these changes? Should it be done before, with, or after the release?

[ollie-iterators]

TSC Summary: This issue outlines the steps needed to fix our documentation license issue.

TSC Question: What is the plan for making these changes? Should it be done before, with, or after the release?

Does it matter if both of them get merged?

[mdjermanovic]

In the 2023-06-01 TSC Meeting, we decided to make these changes after the release (after we close the release issue #17210).

@ollie-iterators timing matters because merging #17227 makes docs being out-of-sync with the code and releases update the latest version of the docs at https://eslint.org/docs/latest with the content from the main branch. Now we have time to get the docs changes back into the main branch (step 4) before the next release.

[mdjermanovic]

Steps 1-3 are finished now.

Definitely. Ideally, we put the new license notice in place and ask people on existing PRs to rebase on top of main so the lineage is clear.

@nzakas Should we put the new license notice now, before we ask people to resubmit the documentation from the removed commits and before we ask people to rebase existing PRs?

[nzakas]

Yes, let’s get the new license notice in before merging anything else.

[mdjermanovic]

Yes, let’s get the new license notice in before merging anything else.

#17248

[aladdin-add]

closing as fixed.