Clarify xbatcher license

[maxrjones]

What is your issue?

The license file for xbatcher is MIT, but the package metadata lists Apache. @rabernat, as the original author can you confirm the correct license for xbatcher? I can update accordingly afterwards.

[jhamman]

I favor the Apache license for projects with multiple contributors. Therefore, I suggest we change the license file to the Apache license to line up with the package metadata.

[weiji14]

Does this count as relicensing? I would have thought the LICENSE file is the correct source, but looking at git blame, the 'Apache' license metadata added 28 Oct 2018 at https://github.com/xarray-contrib/xbatcher/blame/a36a958d709900eb5dc6af700e0d21b22f3e55ed/setup.py#L14 actually came before the 'MIT' license file added on 4 Nov 2018 in 3e71e44, so not sure what's the original intention. Maybe wait for @rabernat to clarify things 🙂

In any case, the text at

xbatcher/LICENSE

Line 3 in 54ebaa7

Copyright (c) 2016 Ryan Abernathey

should probably be updated to say 'Xbatcher developers' or something along those lines.

[maxrjones]

My intuition was the same as yours that the LICENSE file would have taken precedence, but I'm not a lawyer either... As you suggested, we can wait for clarification about the intention here in order to determine whether this was a bug. Relicensing would be complicated but not impossible given the number of contributors.

[maxrjones]

Respectfully pinging @rabernat to help resolve this issue. To summarize, we need to know whether the xbatcher project was intended to be licensed as Apache, MIT, or both. I would greatly appreciate your input so we can make any necessary fixes prior to the upcoming release.

[rabernat]

Sorry for the slow reply. Really no strong preference from me. I created this in a hurry without giving too much thought to the license, and clearly I made a mistake by creating this inconsistent metadata. I support whatever path is easiest / preferred by the current contributors.

Apache and MIT are highly compatible, so hopefully not too hard to fix.