It just occurred to me that what you said, Gray, basically means to
take the "FilesAnalyzed" field into account when determining whether
"PackageDownloadLocation" points to a source or binary artifact. Or
phrased differently, if I intend "PackageDownloadLocation" to point to
a binary artifact, I should set "FilesAnalyzed" explicitly to "false"
(as its default is "true").

Does that make sense?

-- 
Sebastian Schuberth

On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 6:51 AM Sebastian Schuberth <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> 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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