Analysis of an issue with CLDR JSON license metadata

unicode-cldr-json-license-metadata-issue.txt

In the Unicode CLDR repositories https://github.com/unicode-cldr
 
the package.json and bower.json don't declare the software license using proper
SPDX syntax.
 
This is causing some problems with the WebJars system –
https://www.webjars.org/ – which demands a valid open source license be
declared. (WebJars uses BinTray, and BinTray only allows open source artifacts
to be posted without paying.)
 
The Unicode license is registered with SPDX as Unicode-DFS-2015 –
https://spdx.org/licenses/Unicode-DFS-2015.html – so in bower.json you just
need to add
 
"license": "Unicode-DFS-2015”
 
(There is also a newer Unicode license called Unicode-DFS-2016 –
https://spdx.org/licenses/Unicode-DFS-2016.html – which deletes the term about
labelling modified copies. The version in the LICENSE file is the 2015 version
not the 2016 version. It makes no difference to me which version of the license
you use, since I have no plans to modify any of these files – I presume that
packaging the unmodified files into a JAR, and adding some extra metadata
files, which is what WebJars is doing, doesn’t count as “modification”.)
 
Likewise, in package.json, you would say: "license": "Unicode-DFS-2015".
 
In packages.json you currently have:
 
  "licenses": [
    {
      "type": "Unicode-TOU",
      "url": "http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html"
    }
  ],
 
That’s no longer correct syntax per https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#license
 
The correct syntax now is just “license” with an SPDX format string. Also, it
is wrong, because these files are licensed under Unicode-DFS-2015 not
Unicode-TOU – https://spdx.org/licenses/Unicode-TOU.html

CLDR ticket: https://unicode.org/cldr/trac/ticket/11059