Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
Package: debian-policy
Severity: wishlist
[X-Debbugs-Cc: ftpmas...@debian.org because I know the Policy maintainers
don't actually control what is or isn't acceptable in the archive in this
respect.]
Some packages currently have stanzas like this in their copyright files:
License: MPL-2.0
The complete text of the Mozilla Public License 2.0 can be found in
the `MPL-2.0' file in the same directory as this file.
It is not clear to me whether Debian Policy allows this. I would like it
to be specifically allowed, unless there is some good reason not to; if
ftp-master tools like whatever tool generates
https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html need to be able to extract these
files, it would be OK to prescribe some fixed naming convention, such as
/usr/share/doc/${package}/${name}.license or (if they are also required
to have a prescribed location in the source package)
debian/${name}.license.
One package that would benefit from this is adwaita-icon-theme. It currently
has an 87K copyright file[1], mechanically generated from a Perl script[2]
and four verbatim Creative Commons licenses[3] which are re-indented for
copyright-format by the script. If I'd known it was OK to do so, I would
much rather have shipped those four licenses as-is and just made the
copyright file refer to them.
If the licenses are allowed to be compressed (see also [4]) then
so much the better.
Regards,
S
[1]
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/copyright?revision=43390view=markup
[2]
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/copyright.pl?revision=43390view=markup
[3]
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=491055
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Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
Package: debian-policy
Severity: wishlist
[X-Debbugs-Cc: ftpmas...@debian.org because I know the Policy maintainers
don't actually control what is or isn't acceptable in the archive in this
respect.]
Some packages currently have stanzas like this in their copyright files:
License: MPL-2.0
The complete text of the Mozilla Public License 2.0 can be found in
the `MPL-2.0' file in the same directory as this file.
It is not clear to me whether Debian Policy allows this. I would like it
to be specifically allowed, unless there is some good reason not to; if
ftp-master tools like whatever tool generates
https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html need to be able to extract these
files, it would be OK to prescribe some fixed naming convention, such as
/usr/share/doc/${package}/${name}.license or (if they are also required
to have a prescribed location in the source package)
debian/${name}.license.
One package that would benefit from this is adwaita-icon-theme. It currently
has an 87K copyright file[1], mechanically generated from a Perl script[2]
and four verbatim Creative Commons licenses[3] which are re-indented for
copyright-format by the script. If I'd known it was OK to do so, I would
much rather have shipped those four licenses as-is and just made the
copyright file refer to them.
If the licenses are allowed to be compressed (see also [4]) then
so much the better.
Regards,
S
[1]
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/copyright?revision=43390view=markup
[2]
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/copyright.pl?revision=43390view=markup
[3]
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=491055
Hi Simon,
just maybe another datapoint, as recently there was a similar dicussion on
d-devel, the thread started as
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/09/msg00704.html (difference: This
was a question brought up by Markus if it is sufficient to referencfe to the
common licenses)
Though I think this discussion did not end with some concrete conclusion...
--
tobi
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Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
On Thu, Nov 06, 2014 at 09:44:29AM +, Simon McVittie wrote: Package: debian-policy Severity: wishlist [X-Debbugs-Cc: ftpmas...@debian.org because I know the Policy maintainers don't actually control what is or isn't acceptable in the archive in this respect.] Some packages currently have stanzas like this in their copyright files: License: MPL-2.0 The complete text of the Mozilla Public License 2.0 can be found in the `MPL-2.0' file in the same directory as this file. It is not clear to me whether Debian Policy allows this. I would like it to be specifically allowed, unless there is some good reason not to; Hello Simon, I do not thing that policy allow it, because that break the assumption that the copyright contains all the relevant information. olicy 2.3 below states a verbatim copy which exclude indirections. In particular that breaks services like http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs/main/b/bash/unstable_copyright which are not able to dereference the link. 2.3. Copyright considerations - Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its copyright information and distribution license in the file `/usr/share/doc/package/copyright' (see Section 12.5, `Copyright information' for further details). Cheers, -- Bill. ballo...@debian.org Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141106130239.GA32257@yellowpig
Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
On 06/11/14 13:02, Bill Allombert wrote: I do not thing that policy allow it, because that break the assumption that the copyright contains all the relevant information. olicy 2.3 below states a verbatim copy which exclude indirections. That's why this is wishlist. I don't think policy does allow it, and if possible, I would like that to change; I suspect that an 87K copyright file containing four Creative Commons licenses each indented by 1 space is not the most useful form for this information :-) (If nothing else, separating out long licenses like CC and MPL as their upstream-distributed verbatim text would be better for filesystems that can de-duplicate at the file level, like btrfs.) S -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/545b7376.8000...@debian.org
Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
On 06/11/14 12:17, Tobias Frost wrote: just maybe another datapoint, as recently there was a similar dicussion on d-devel, the thread started as https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/09/msg00704.html (difference: This was a question brought up by Markus if it is sufficient to referencfe to the common licenses) My understanding is that Markus' question in that thread was orthogonal: is the exact license grant really required, or is the license itself enough? (for terminology see my reply at https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/09/msg00708.html). I would also appreciate a canonical answer on that, which I think would also have to come from the ftp-masters. In both cases, if the ftp-masters could clarify what they want and why, I would be happy to propose Policy wording (here or on a separate bug as desired). Sorry, but I'm not going to propose concrete Policy wording for this without knowing the requirements (and preferably the reasoning behind those requirements), because I think a highly specific Policy that does not match the actual requirements for the archive, in either direction, would be worse than the current vague Policy wording: I don't want to make maintainers do work that the ftp-masters do not actually require (because the more time I have to spend writing copyright files, the less interesting packaging becomes), and I don't want to make maintainers think they can skip things that the ftp-masters do in fact require (because packages that don't pass NEW on the first attempt waste everyone's time). If there is a better way to get a canonical answer from the ftp-masters (ftp.debian.org bug?) I'm happy to take these questions there. I'm deliberately not pointing to specific packages that are not necessarily policy-compliant as test-cases, because I don't really want to point the potential RC bug shotgun at specific packages if those packages are actually fine in practice. However, if the only way to determine what is required is to point fingers, name names, and reverse-engineer requirements from whether those packages attract RC bugs or are removed from the archive, I could make a note to try that post-jessie... S -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/545b7b29.4080...@debian.org
Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
Hi, Simon McVittie wrote: Some packages currently have stanzas like this in their copyright files: License: MPL-2.0 The complete text of the Mozilla Public License 2.0 can be found in the `MPL-2.0' file in the same directory as this file. It is not clear to me whether Debian Policy allows this. It doesn't. I would like it to be specifically allowed, unless there is some good reason not to; If there were some standardized machine-readable way to indicate which files the copyright file refers to, and if we update tools such as the changelog link on p.d.o to ensure that the files the copyright file refers to are available, too, then I would very much like this change. Until then, it seems like a bad idea. Thanks, Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141106215855.ga16...@google.com
Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
Simon McVittie wrote: My understanding is that Markus' question in that thread was orthogonal: is the exact license grant really required, or is the license itself enough? (for terminology see my reply at https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/09/msg00708.html). I would also appreciate a canonical answer on that A license grant is required. (I'm speaking as an end-user. I am not an ftpmaster, but I don't think that's particularly relevant.) Otherwise there's no clear indication that upstream was actually telling me I have permission to use, modify, and distribute the code under that license, instead of meaning to say, for instance, that that license is pleasant reading matter. An explicit license grant from upstream like /* License: GPLv2 */ along with a pointer to the text in common-licenses seems good enough to me, though. Is that what you're referring to? I find the text verbatim copy from policy 2.3 to be problematic for reasons I've talked about before (summary: it's too vague), but I assume that's orthogonal to what you're talking about. Maybe there should be a footnote attached to distribution license saying that license text without context is not magical and we care about the actual license grant. Would that help? Thanks, Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141106221351.gb16...@google.com
Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
Le Thu, Nov 06, 2014 at 09:44:29AM +, Simon McVittie a écrit : Some packages currently have stanzas like this in their copyright files: License: MPL-2.0 The complete text of the Mozilla Public License 2.0 can be found in the `MPL-2.0' file in the same directory as this file. It is not clear to me whether Debian Policy allows this. Hi Simon, within our current practice, the MPL-2.0 license would need to be added to /usr/share/common-licenses to allow quoting it from the Debian copyright file. Last time Russ looked if the license was frequent enough, the answer was no. But you can have a look at tools/license-count in the Policy's source package, and run it again at lintian.debian.org to see if the situation changed significantly. That would solve your problem with this license. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141107003636.ga12...@falafel.plessy.net
Bug#768292: debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: within our current practice, the MPL-2.0 license would need to be added to /usr/share/common-licenses to allow quoting it from the Debian copyright file. Last time Russ looked if the license was frequent enough, the answer was no. But you can have a look at tools/license-count in the Policy's source package, and run it again at lintian.debian.org to see if the situation changed significantly. That would solve your problem with this license. I suspect the right answer for the MPL-2.0 at this point is to just put it in common-licenses, since it keeps coming up and causing friction. ftpmaster mentioned during the last discussion that they see this often enough that they'd be supportive of that. It's not as widely used as the bar that we'd normally like to use, but it's referenced in some very widely-installed packages, and it's irritating to deal with because it's so long. The other objection, though, was that, as a project, we don't really *like* the MPL 2.0 license. It's a rather irritating license that we'd rather people not use, and having it in common-licenses can be seen as a sort of endorsement. I'm not sure how much weight to put on that argument. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/87zjc393bg@hope.eyrie.org
