`isLibreSoftware` is false for most entries because the free-software licence allowlist has the wrong Wikidata IDs

[gounthar]

Opening an issue first, as CONTRIBUTING asks, before proposing anything.

On scope, since I saw #566 get redirected and I understand why: this is not a request to list a particular piece of software. It is a defect in catalogi's own code, so it affects any deployment, not just the SILL.

What I ran into

I was trying to work out why XCP-ng shows as not being free software on the SILL, assuming the fault was in our own Wikidata data. It is not.

isLibreSoftware is computed in api/src/core/adapters/wikidata/getWikidataSoftware.ts:

"isLibreSoftware": license === undefined ? false
                  : freeSoftwareLicensesWikidataIds.includes(license.id),

So it reads the software's P275 (copyright license) and checks it against the hardcoded freeSoftwareLicensesWikidataIds array at the bottom of the same file.

The array

I checked all 51 IDs in it against Wikidata. Three point at the licence their comment claims. A sample of the rest:

ID	Comment says	The item actually is
Q309877	Apache License 2.0	Lepismium cruciforme, a species of cactus
Q334062	Mozilla Public License 2.0	Jozo Tomasevich, historian (1908-1994)
Q1277061	GNU AGPL v3.0 only	Earl Fuller, musician (1885-1947)
Q2464622	GNU GPL v3.0 or later	Marília, a microregion of Brazil
Q369616	CeCILL v2.1	Antigama, a Polish grindcore band
Q39015	GNU LGPL v3.0 or later	Harlem Désir, politician
Q1507844	BSD 2-Clause	George Manners, 11th Baron de Ros (d. 1513)
Q5099871	CeCILL-B	China Railways JF, a series of steam locomotives

GPL-2.0 is absent from the list in any form, so no GPL-2.0 software can ever evaluate as true. XCP-ng's P275 is Q27016752 (GPL-2.0-or-later) and is correct, which is what sent me looking at the consumer rather than the data.

On the SILL deployment, 440 of 668 entries currently read isLibreSoftware: false. In practice the flag only works for MIT-licensed software. I have not looked at other deployments.

What I think the fix looks like

Resolve each ID from the Wikidata item that carries the matching SPDX licence ID (P2479), and record the SPDX code in the comment next to each entry, so the table can be re-checked mechanically instead of by eye.

Two entries needed a judgement call:

• BSD-2-Clause: Q18517294 ("2-clause BSD License") is the right item, but it carries no P2479 claim, so it is not reachable by an SPDX lookup. It needs to stay hardcoded with a note.
• CeCILL-B: there is no Wikidata item for it at all. I dropped the entry rather than leave it pointing somewhere wrong.

I also removed one duplicate, since "GNU General Public License, version 3.0" is the same licence as GPL-3.0-only. That takes the list from 51 entries to 49.

I have this on a branch and can open a PR if it is useful.

If you would rather derive the list from P2479 at build time instead of maintaining it by hand, that would stop it drifting again, but it is a bigger change, and I did not want to assume which way you would want to go.

[lgrd]

Hi @gounthar, thank you for this issue !

@guillermau do you have some preferences for the fix ?

[guillermau]

This is a good issue, thanks @gounthar.

isLibreSoftware is mainly use in the SILL. On other sources, it is false by default because sometimes it is difficult to analyse the received data.

I will check with Violaine about licences if she would like to have a mechanism for that for other sources. In any case, it's a good fix for Wikidata.