Thanks Gary, that makes sense to me. It's a bit unfortunate that the
intended use of PackageDownloadLocation is (intentionally) kept a bit
vague in the spec. But I agree that for our use-case it makes more
sense to use it to refer to the source code location, so we'll simply
make that a convention.

-- 
Sebastian Schuberth

On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 11:12 PM Gary O'Neall <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Sebastian,
>
> I don't recall discussing this specific aspect of the download location when 
> we were drafting that part of the spec, so I don't have an answer that 
> represents the community.
>
> In my use of the field, I have been using the download location to indicate 
> where to get the artifact that were actually analyzed in producing the SPDX 
> document.  For example: If you generated license matches off of downloaded 
> source code, the download location would point to the source.
>
> Gary
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of
> > Sebastian Schuberth
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:35 AM
> > To: Steve Winslow <[email protected]>
> > Cc: spdx-tech <[email protected]>
> > Subject: Re: [spdx-tech] Should PackageDownloadLocation point to source or
> > binary?
> >
> > Thanks for the answer, Steve. However, there are cases where it's really 
> > hard
> > to tell what the intended representation is. For example, in the context of 
> > ORT
> > [1] we're using SPDX documents to describe projects and their dependencies
> > where there are no other means (e.g. a package manager / build system like
> > Maven) available.
> >
> > So when using SPDX to describe a package that is a dependency of a project,
> > you might actually be interested in both the binary artifacts (as that's 
> > what's
> > used in the build) and the source code (as that's what you scan with a 
> > license
> > scanner) for that package. This makes it quite unclear what the
> > PackageDownloadLocation should point to.
> >
> > Any recommendations for that particular use-case?
> >
> > [1] https://github.com/oss-review-toolkit/ort
> >
> > --
> > Sebastian Schuberth
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 6:41 PM Steve Winslow
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Sebastian,
> > >
> > > I think the answer would depend on what distribution of software the
> > Package is intended to represent. E.g., if the Package is representing /
> > describing a distribution of source code, then the PackageDownloadLocation
> > would likely point to the VCS syntax. Or if the Package is describing a 
> > binary
> > artifact, then that's where the PackageDownloadLocation would point too.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Steve
> > >
> > > On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 11:04 AM Sebastian Schuberth
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Hi,
> > >>
> > >> just a quick question about the PackageDownloadLocation [1]: When it
> > >> does not contain a VCS URL, but to a plain URL, is the URL the
> > >> supposed to point to the *source* artifact for the package, or the
> > >> *binary* artifact for the package?
> > >>
> > >> Given that the alternative VCS syntax obviously points to the source
> > >> code, I would expect that also the plain URL syntax is supposed to
> > >> point to a source artifact, but I couldn't find it spelled out in the
> > >> spec.
> > >>
> > >> [1]
> > >> https://spdx.github.io/spdx-spec/3-package-information/#37-package-do
> > >> wnload-location
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Sebastian Schuberth
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Steve Winslow
> > > VP, Compliance and Legal
> > > The Linux Foundation
> > > [email protected]
> >
> >
> > 
>
>


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