[Hackage] #247: Needless license warning on PublicDomain

[Hackage]

#247: Needless license warning on PublicDomain
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
  Reporter:  guest          |        Owner:         
      Type:  defect         |       Status:  new    
  Priority:  low            |    Milestone:         
 Component:  Cabal library  |      Version:  1.2.3.0
  Severity:  minor          |     Keywords:         
Difficulty:  normal         |   Ghcversion:  6.8.2  
  Platform:                 |  
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
 While looking at harp, I noticed that during 'runhaskell Setup configure',
 it was emitting a warning about no 'license-file' field.

 Which is perfectly fine and appropriate most of the time, but harp's cabal
 file mentions 'License:                PublicDomain'.

 Strictly speaking, PublicDomain isn't even a license. For there to be a
 license, there must be copyright, and public domain is by definition the
 lack of copyright. Even if you don't buy this, it still would not make
 sense to want a license file, as it cannot say anything that the words
 'public domain' do not (hence, needless and wasteful).

 So Cabal is implicitly encouraging something which is wrong-headed or
 pointless. It's not a big deal, but it shouldn't be warning about it.

 --
 gwern

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/247>
Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/>
Hackage: Cabal and related projects