Charles Plessy wrote: > I would like to re-frame the discussion and remind that [...] > In the case of the (L)GPL, it is common practice to use the license notices as > found in headers of files as if they were the actual license text.
For what it's worth, I disagree, while I agree with Ximin Luo that current format is somewhat inefficient in the cases mentioned. Perhaps a source of confusion is something Joerg wrote five years ago[1]: | There are license headers, like the one used for GPL in the example below, you | should use those. I continue to believe that what he meant is that such pre-made license headers are good at covering their bases and that it is advisable to take advantage of the work that was already done in writing them. For example, the typical license headers explicitly mention that _you_ may redistribute and modify the software, and they tend to include a disclaimer of warranty. By contrast, a statement like | | On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License | | can be found in the `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL' file. does not actually say that that license applies to the software at all! However, if I'm the only one that read the email that way, then I would be happy to see this clarified in policy. (Well, I would be unhappy actually, since it would mean a lot of work for me preserving all the variations on license notices in packages I work with.) The rest of the use cases described should be easier to address: - In the current copyright-format, if you say "License: GPL-2+" or "License: GFDL-1.1+", you have to say what that means. That is probably worth changing in the future, for example by only requiring the presence of at least one standalone paragraph satisfying the license version constraint (e.g., "License: GPL-2" or "License: GFDL-1.2"). I think it would be fine to delay that to copyright-format 1.1. - The current copyright-format is unclear about how to document what a license exception means in a standalone paragraph. I think that should be fixed before release, for example by requiring a standalone paragraph describing the license together with the exception (e.g., "License: GPL-2+ with Font exception"). In a later release, a new "License-Exception" paragraph type could be introduced. - Current practice is not to treat the list of copyright holders as part of the license. I see no reason to explicitly document that or change it. - Copyright holders can be listed in the "Copyright" field. Other authors can be listed in a "Comment" field when desirable. They can be collated and do not need to be separated by file when a "Files" stanza describes multiple files (unless some license requirement says so, of course). I see no reason to change this. Sane? [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00023.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org