Hi Alexandre (and Bastian), Quoting Alexandre Rossi (2026-01-21 05:46:06) > > There are no License-Grant or Reference fields in the machine-readable > > copyright format specification. > > Was there some newer spec you were implementing with this kind of change? > > * update copyright info: fix license shortname; use field License-Grant; > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > tidy copyright holders > * update copyright info: use field Reference; update coverage > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > [1] > https://salsa.debian.org/uwsgi-team/uwsgi-plugin-ruby/-/commit/9868a867bfd3d93e09e53f7a50e625fcc8335afb > [2] > https://salsa.debian.org/uwsgi-team/uwsgi-plugin-ruby/-/commit/2a7db8367cd38650856a12a0e60f8537c34ee25d
There has not, to my knowledge, been any general interest in Debian in advancing the copyright file spec beyond its current version 1.0. That version of the spec does, however, permit custom fields, which (for now) is what Reference and License-Grant are. The purpose of both those fields is to make some data points machine-readable which are impossible to do with only official fields. License-Grant: verbatim statement by copyright holder for granting a general license, when different from the general license itself. Reference: IRI pointing to further information. Without those fields, such (quite common) data points need to either be implicit or written only human-readable as comments or "invented" non-comment content not originating from the copyright holder but authored by Debian maintainer (typically not documenting that fact). lintian complains related to some uses of Reference field. Not directly about the field itself but about the omission of non-machine-readable content, which the Reference field provides machine-readable (and IRI) and therefore achieves the purpose of the machine-readable copyright file format spec for a detail that the current spec fails to do so. I consider lintian to be wrong, as discussed in bug#786450. It is my understanding that the way forward for bug#786450 is to update Debian Policy - and that such clarification requires a proposed change which two persons sign on to. I was approached (just before and during Debconf in Taiwan, as I recall) for helping draft a proposed text, but was too stressed with paid work at the time, and haven't taken the time since to look at it. Help much appreciated. The License-Grant field was proposed in 2015 by Ben Finney, here: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/05/msg00487.html (the beginning of above mailinglist thread is mentioned in Bug#786450) The Reference field has been used by me at least since 2017, and I credit Ben Finney for it although his contribution might be only the above mailinglist conversation and I then thought up the Reference field on my own. I don't think that I have written down the purpose of that field until few weeks ago when I explained it here: https://bugs.debian.org/1124821#15 . Hope that all helps. - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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