Package: licenserecon Version: 7.0 I am currently working on updating the `debian/copyright` file for the `grep` package to ensure it is fully compliant and that `lrc` runs cleanly. After making extensive updates to accurately document the licenses of all source files, I've encountered some behavior from `lrc` that I suspect might be a bug.
Initially, `lrc` reported numerous license mismatches. I have since added specific `Files:` stanzas for all the reported files, using wildcards where appropriate. However, `lrc` continues to report a large number of discrepancies. The core of the issue seems to be that `lrc` is not correctly matching files to their corresponding stanzas in `debian/copyright`. For many files, the `d/copyright` column in the `lrc` output is GPL-3+ even though the file has a more specific license defined. $ lrc : Versions: licenserecon '7.0' licensecheck '3.3.9-1' Parsing Source Tree .... Reading d/copyright .... Running licensecheck .... d/copyright | licensecheck GPL-3+ | FSFAP INSTALL GPL-3+ | FSFAP and/or GFDL-1.3+ NEWS GPL-3+ | FSFAP TODO GPL-3+ | FSFULLR aclocal.m4 GPL-3+ | FSFULLR build-aux/config.rpath GPL-3+ | GPL-2+ build-aux/gnupload GPL-3+ | X11 build-aux/install-sh GPL-3+ | FSFUL configure GPL-3+ | GFDL-1.3+ doc/grep.info GPL-3+ | GFDL-1.3+ doc/grep.texi This suggests that this definition overrides the other definitions somehow: Files: * Copyright: 1992-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 2004, Stepan Kasal <[email protected]> 2007, Tony Abou-Assaleh <[email protected]> 2009-2012, Jim Meyering <[email protected]> and Paolo Bonzini <[email protected]> License: GPL-3+ Files: INSTALL TODO Copyright: 1994-1996, 1999-2002, 2004-2017, 2020-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License: FSFAP This behavior persists despite trying different structures for the `debian/copyright` file, such as using a preamble for the default license versus a `Files: *` stanza. The current structure follows the Debian Policy Manual and seems correct, yet the tool does not produce the expected output. Could you please advise if this is expected behavior or if it might be a bug in how `licenserecon` parses the copyright file? You can reproduce this by running gbp clone https://salsa.debian.org/debian/grep.git cd grep lrc It might be that this is no bug and I simply misunderstood how the `debian/copyright` file is supposed to be structured.
