Rewrite and split licensing info into two files (#2112)

[ci skip]

LICENSE.txt

@@ -1,73 +1,8 @@
-Unless noted below, NeoForge, NeoForge Mod Loader, and all 
-parts herein are licensed under the terms of the LGPL 2.1 found
-here http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.txt and 
-copied below.
-
-Homepage: https://neoforged.net/
-          https://github.com/neoforged/NeoForge
-          
-
-A note on authorship:
-All source artifacts are property of their original author, with
-the exclusion of the contents of the patches directory and others
-copied from it from time to time. Authorship of the contents of
-the patches directory is retained by the NeoForge project.
-This is because the patches are partially machine generated
-artifacts, and are changed heavily due to the way NeoForge works.
-Individual attribution within them is impossible.
-
-Consent:
-All contributions to NeoForge must consent to the release of any
-patch content to the NeoForge project.
-
-A note on infectivity:
-The LGPL is chosen specifically so that projects may depend on NeoForge
-features without being infected with its license. That is the 
-purpose of the LGPL. Mods and others using this code via ordinary
-Java mechanics for referencing libraries are specifically not bound
-by NeoForge's license for the Mod code.
-
-
-=== MCP Data ===
-This software includes data from the Minecraft Coder Pack (MCP), with kind permission
-from them. The license to MCP data is not transitive - distribution of this data by
-third parties requires independent licensing from the MCP team. This data is not
-redistributable without permission from the MCP team.
-
-=== Sharing ===
-I grant permission for some parts of FML to be redistributed outside the terms of the LGPL, for the benefit of
-the minecraft modding community. All contributions to these parts should be licensed under the same additional grant.
-
--- Runtime patcher --
-License is granted to redistribute the runtime patcher code (src/main/java/net/minecraftforge/fml/common/patcher
-and subdirectories) under any alternative open source license as classified by the OSI (http://opensource.org/licenses)
-
--- Coremods --
-License is granted to redistribute the Coremod code (/src/main/resources/coremods)
-under any alternative open source license as classified by the OSI (http://opensource.org/licenses)
-
-=========================================================================
-This software includes portions from the Apache Maven project at
-http://maven.apache.org/ specifically the ComparableVersion.java code. It is
-included based on guidelines at
-http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html
-with notices intact. The only change is a non-functional change of package name.
-
-This software contains a partial repackaging of javaxdelta, a BSD licensed program for generating
-binary differences and applying them, sourced from the subversion at http://sourceforge.net/projects/javaxdelta/
-authored by genman, heikok, pivot.
-The only changes are to replace some Trove collection types with standard Java collections, and repackaged.
-
-This software includes the Monocraft font from https://github.com/IdreesInc/Monocraft/ for use in the early loading
-display.
-=========================================================================
-
-
                   GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
                        Version 2.1, February 1999
 
  Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
+ <https://fsf.org/>
  Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
  of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
 

README-LICENSE.md

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+
+# Licensing
+
+Unless noted below, NeoForge and all its parts here in this repository are
+licensed under the **GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1** (LGPL v2.1), as 
+seen at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.txt and reproduced
+in the `LICENSE-LGPLv2.1` at the root of this repository.
+
+The version of the license is specifically v2.1, and no other version shall be
+used. In SPDX terms, this means: `SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-only`.
+
+The homepage for NeoForge is at https://neoforged.net, with the Git 
+repository located at https://github.com/neoforged/NeoForge.
+
+## Minecraft EULA
+
+As NeoForge is a software modification made for Minecraft: Java Edition, it and
+all other projects made using NeoForge (primarily, Minecraft mods) are bound by
+the terms of the Minecraft End-User License Agreement (EULA), as seen at
+https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/eula or https://aka.ms/MinecraftEULA.
+
+Please be aware of the terms and conditions in the EULA, particularly the
+section on Mods. 
+
+## Use of the LGPL and infectivity
+
+The LGPL v2.1 was chosen specifically so projects may link to and depend on
+NeoForge's features and APIs without being bound to be themselves licensed
+under the same license (commonly known as "infectivity").
+
+Thus, mods or other projects using NeoForge's code through the various Java
+mechanics for linking and referencing libraries are not bound to be licensed
+under the LGPL v2.1 by its terms and conditions, and are free to use whatever
+license for their own work.
+
+## Contributor License Agreement and the patches directory
+
+All contributors to NeoForge are required to agree to a **Contributor License
+Agreement** before their contributions are merged, which is seen in the 
+`docs/CONTRIBUTING.md` and reproduced below:
+
+> - You grant NeoForged a license to use your code contributed to the primary 
+> codebase (everything **not** under patches) in NeoForge, under the LGPLv2.1 
+> license.
+> - You assign copyright ownership of your contributions to the patches 
+> codebase (everything under patches) to NeoForged, where it will be licensed
+> under the LGPLv2.1 license.
+> 
+> This is intended as a **legally binding copyright assignment** to the 
+> NeoForged project for contributions under the patches codebase. However you
+> retain your copyright for all other contributions.
+
+This means that the contents of the patches codebase (that is, everything under
+the `patches` subdirectory of this repository) are under the copyright 
+ownership of the NeoForged Team. 
+
+This is in part intended to reduce any conflicts that may arise from 
+identifying the ownership in whole or in part of any patch file, since all 
+patch files are automatically (re)generated by our tooling, and it would be
+impractical to impossible for individual attribution to be made.
+
+All other parts of any contributions remain under the copyright of the 
+contributors, licensed under the LGPL v2.1 license.