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Legal Team/Templatizing/ReviewXML

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Plan for review of XML license file

The files can be found here: https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML

You will need to have a Github account to participate in the review. Let Jilayne know your Github account ID to be added to the repository team.

Key things to review before reviewing the XML files:

You may also want to watch:

Key things to look at during review:

  1. identify which parts of the license template are important or unimportant for purposes of matching (as per the Matching Guidelines)
  2. structural components - ensuring we have groups of clauses correctly identified (automated process takes care of most of this, but sanity check). Note that if a license does not have info for certain tags (e.g., Notes or a Standard Header) these tags won't appear in the XML
  3. look at the labels created for other things to note whilst reviewing the licenses
  4. consider any changes that need to be made to the Matching Guidelines or License List Overview/description of fields as you go along

Process for Review

  1. go to https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML (you need a Github account)
  2. go to pull requests (this represents all the licenses that need to be reviewed)
  3. to ensure you are working on licenses that have not been reviewed or are not being reviewed by others:
    • filter the list using the facets on the right side by: Labels = unlabeled; and then Assignee = Assigned to nobody
    • check off a handful of licenses you are going to work on and then Assign to yourself
  1. pick a license to review ; go to "Files changed" to view the actual file (in diff format)
  2. if everything looks good, then go back to "conversation" tab and you can either:
    1. merge the pull request if you feel confidant to do so
    2. leave a comment that you reviewed it and label this as "approved" - labels are found in the right side (see below for more on labels)
  3. if you see something you have a question about or think needs editing, then you can:
    1. if you want to actually edit the content, click on the pencil icon in the top right corner (you will need access to Kris' fork of this account)
    2. comment in-line

Labels created in Github: https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/labels

  • approved = someone looked at it, thinks it's good to go, but didn't merge it
  • has acknowledgement = if you find a license that requires the reproduction of specific acknowledgment text, then label it with "has acknowledgement" - for example see: https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/pull/279/files
  • has self-referring numbering = a license has numbering that maybe should not be ignored (as per Matching Guideline 7) because the license text self-refers to section numbers. We may decide to remove the tags for these and modify the matching guideline
  • question = use if you have a question generally
  • need legal discussion = there is a question you want to discuss on the next call


  • If you have approved the content, but otherwise approved, use "approved" label
  • If the license is good to go, then click on the "merge pull request" and you're done!