docs(adr): propose a licensing standard by provenance (ADR-0017)

.github/instruction-surfaces.json

@@ -737,6 +737,18 @@
       "review_owner": "z-shell maintainers",
       "canonical_for": []
     },
+    {
+      "id": "decision-0017",
+      "path": "decisions/0017-licensing-standard-by-provenance.md",
+      "kind": "decision",
+      "authority": "canonical-detail",
+      "consumers": ["codex", "claude-code", "copilot", "gemini-cli", "human"],
+      "tasks": ["architecture-decision"],
+      "file_patterns": ["**"],
+      "required": true,
+      "review_owner": "z-shell maintainers",
+      "canonical_for": []
+    },
     {
       "id": "zsh-standard-policy",
       "path": "lib/zsh-standard-policy.json",

decisions/0017-licensing-standard-by-provenance.md

@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+# 17. Licensing Standard by Provenance and Consumption
+
+- **Status:** ACCEPTED
+- **Date:** 2026-08-18
+- **Deciders:** ss-o
+- **Supersedes:** None
+- **Superseded by:** None
+
+## Context
+
+The organization has no written licensing policy. Nothing in `decisions/`,
+`runbooks/`, `AGENTS.md`, or `PATTERNS.md` states which license a repository
+should carry, how a new repository chooses one, or what to do when an existing
+repository disagrees with the rest. `runbooks/new-repository.md` bootstraps
+labels, CI templates, and dependency automation without ever selecting a
+license.
+
+The intent that GPL-3 is the organization standard exists, but only as
+maintainer preference that was never ratified into a decision record. This is
+the same failure mode `decisions/0013-repository-settings-baseline.md` opens
+with: a requirement that is real in intent and enforced by nothing.
+
+A survey of eleven actively maintained repositories on 2026-08-17 found the
+intent is not reflected in practice:
+
+| License | Repositories                                                       |
+| ------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
+| GPL-3   | `.github`, `wiki`, `src`, `z-a-meta-plugins`, `zsh-fancy-completions` |
+| MIT     | `zi`, `zd`, `zsh-lint`, `zsh-eza`, `zunit`, `zsh`                    |
+
+Two of the MIT repositories cannot be relicensed at all. `zunit` is
+`Copyright (c) 2016 James Dinsdale` and `zsh` is
+`Copyright (c) 2019 zsh-packages`; both carry third-party copyright that this
+organization does not hold. A blanket GPL-3 rule marks them permanently
+non-compliant against a requirement they can never satisfy, which trains
+maintainers to ignore the finding.
+
+`zi` is a different case again. It is organization-authored
+(`Copyright (c) 2021, Salvydas Lukosius & Z-Shell ZI Community`) and could be
+relicensed, since MIT explicitly grants sublicense rights. But it is a plugin
+manager: third-party plugin code is `source`d into the same shell process.
+Whether a plugin becomes a derivative work of a copyleft shell library it is
+sourced into is unsettled, and that ambiguity is an adoption cost against
+permissively licensed alternatives. It would also raise the same question for
+the organization's own `z-a-*` annexes, which load through `zi`'s API.
+
+Relicensing is also one-directional and prospective. MIT grants already made
+cannot be revoked, so every published release stays permissively licensed and
+forkable regardless of what a future release carries.
+
+## Decision
+
+Adopt a licensing standard expressed by provenance and consumption model,
+rather than a single license value.
+
+### Classes
+
+**Class L1: organization-authored, not loaded into a user's shell.**
+Infrastructure, documentation, container images, standalone tools, and CI
+assets. **GPL-3 required.** Copyleft costs nothing here because the consumer
+runs the artifact rather than linking their own code into it.
+
+**Class L2: organization-authored, combined as source with a user's own shell
+code.** Plugin managers, plugins, and annexes. **Permissive (MIT) by deliberate
+choice.** The derivative-work boundary for sourced shell code is unsettled, and
+the organization's own ecosystem depends on third parties loading this code
+alongside their own.
+
+The discriminator is source combination, not merely running in the shell
+process. A compiled module is dlopened as a binary and is therefore L1, not L2.
+
+**Class L3: third-party forks and repackaging.** **Upstream license retained,
+never relicensed.** The organization does not hold the copyright.
+
+### Assignments
+
+| Repository              | Class | License | Action                       |
+| ----------------------- | ----- | ------- | ---------------------------- |
+| `.github`               | L1    | GPL-3   | compliant                    |
+| `wiki`                  | L1    | GPL-3   | compliant                    |
+| `z-a-meta-plugins`      | L2    | GPL-3   | documented L2 exception      |
+| `zsh-fancy-completions` | L2    | GPL-3   | documented L2 exception      |
+| `zi`                    | L2    | MIT     | compliant, deliberately      |
+| `zunit`                 | L3    | MIT     | compliant, upstream retained |
+| `zsh`                   | L3    | MIT     | compliant, upstream retained |
+| `src`                   | L1    | GPL-3   | compliant, settled 2026-08-18 |
+| `zd`                    | L1    | MIT     | relicense, approved          |
+| `zsh-lint`              | L1    | MIT     | relicense, approved          |
+| `zsh-eza`               | L2    | MIT     | compliant                    |
+
+Every repository records its class, so a license becomes a deliberate recorded
+choice rather than whatever the bootstrapping session happened to pick.
+
+### Settled by the maintainer, 2026-08-18
+
+**`src` is L1 and stays GPL-3.** A compiled module is dlopened as a binary
+rather than merged as text into a user's script, so the sourced-script
+derivative-work ambiguity that justifies permissive L2 does not arise. Being
+loaded into the shell process is not sufficient on its own to make something
+L2; the discriminator is whether third-party source is combined with it.
+
+**`zd` and `zsh-lint` relicense from MIT to GPL-3.** Both are
+organization-authored with no third-party copyright barrier, and neither is
+sourced into a user's shell: `zd` is a container environment and `zsh-lint` is
+a standalone analyzer. MIT permits sublicensing, so no contributor consent is
+required, and every previously published release remains available under MIT.
+
+**`z-a-meta-plugins` and `zsh-fancy-completions` stay GPL-3 as documented L2
+exceptions.** L2 sets a default, not a prohibition. An existing copyleft
+license inside L2 is preserved rather than reversed, because relicensing from
+GPL-3 toward permissive is the direction that genuinely requires every
+contributor's consent, unlike MIT toward GPL-3 which MIT's sublicense grant
+already permits. New L2 repositories still start permissive.
+
+## Consequences
+
+**Upside.** Audit findings become actionable: `zunit` and `zsh` stop being
+permanent violations, and the two genuine drifts (`zd`, `zsh-lint`) become a
+short bounded task. New repositories get a class at bootstrap instead of an
+accidental license. The reasoning is recorded, so the next person to ask "why
+is the plugin manager permissive?" gets an answer instead of a rediscovery.
+
+**Cost.** Three classes are more to carry than one rule, and the boundary
+between L1 and L2 requires judgment for anything that is both a tool and a
+shell integration. Class L2 forgoes copyleft protection on organization code
+deliberately, which means a third party may ship a proprietary derivative of
+`zi`. That is accepted as the price of being infrastructure other people build
+on.
+
+**Not addressed.** This ADR does not relicense anything by itself. Each
+relicensing is a separate change with its own release note stating that prior
+releases remain under the previous license.
+
+## Alternatives considered
+
+**Blanket GPL-3 across the organization.** Rejected. Two repositories carry
+third-party copyright and cannot comply at any effort level, so the rule would
+be born violated. It would also force a plugin manager into a copyleft position
+whose derivative-work boundary is unsettled, for a benefit that is prospective
+only, since existing MIT releases stay forkable.
+
+**Blanket permissive across the organization.** Rejected. It solves the
+compliance problem by abandoning copyleft everywhere, including on
+infrastructure and documentation where copyleft costs nothing and no
+sourced-code ambiguity exists.
+
+**Leave licensing unwritten.** Rejected. That is the current state, and it
+produced a survey where six of eleven repositories disagree with an intent
+nobody recorded, plus an audit finding no one could action.
+
+**Per-repository judgment with no classes.** Rejected. It reproduces the
+existing drift under a new name, and gives no answer at bootstrap time when the
+decision actually gets made.
+
+## References
+
+- `decisions/0013-repository-settings-baseline.md`, the precedent for
+  class-based baselines and the source of the "policy enforced by nothing"
+  framing
+- `decisions/0007-release-publication-flow.md`, whose classes describe
+  publication rather than licensing and are deliberately not reused here
+- `runbooks/new-repository.md`, whose licensing step is added in the same
+  change; it previously said only "use the organization-approved license",
+  pointing at a policy that did not exist

runbooks/new-repository.md

@@ -35,7 +35,25 @@ README.md
   workflows/
 ```
 
-Use the organization-approved license for the artifact. For a Zsh plugin,
+Select the license deliberately and record the choice on the owning issue from
+Step 1. Do not leave it to whatever the repository template happens to create;
+that is how the organization accumulated six differing licenses against an
+intent nobody had written down.
+
+Per [`decisions/0017-licensing-standard-by-provenance.md`](../decisions/0017-licensing-standard-by-provenance.md):
+
+| The repository is                                     | License                        |
+| ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
+| organization-authored, not loaded into a user's shell | GPL-3                          |
+| organization-authored, sourced into a user's shell    | permissive (MIT), deliberately |
+| a fork or repackaging of third-party work             | upstream license, unchanged    |
+
+A fork never gets relicensed: the organization does not hold the copyright.
+For organization-authored code, note that the choice is effectively permanent,
+since a license grant already published cannot be revoked and a later change
+reaches only future releases.
+
+For a Zsh plugin,
 start from [`templates/readme/zsh-plugin.md`](../templates/readme/zsh-plugin.md).
 The initial README must state the purpose, features, install path, supported
 shell/runtime, public configuration, lifecycle behavior, verification command,