On to, 2010-08-12 at 17:14 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > As mentioned in the other thread, one goal for DEP-5 for me is to make the > format sufficiently rich to allow me to use it for the upstream LICENSE > file. Towards that end, I have three changes I'd like to have.
Thanks, that's an interesting use case for the file format, and I'm glad you brought it up. > * An additional section with the same syntax as the Files section but with > no Files field that would be used for documenting the copyright of the > distribution as a whole. (In US law, this is called a compilation > copyright.) This is not the same thing as a Files: * section, which > would specify a default copyright and license for any individual file > that doesn't have other information. In some edge cases, the > compilation copyright and license can be different than the copyright > and license of any individual file in the distribution. I am uncomfortable signalling compilation copyright just with the absence of a Files: field. It seems to error prone to me. It would be better to be explicit, I think. What would be a good way of being explicit in this case? > * A comment field in the header section into which I can put statements > like: > > All individual files with no other license statement are released > under this license. Some files have additional copyright dates from > earlier releases or may be owned by other copyright holders as noted > in those files. Some files are individually released under different > licenses, all of which are compatible with the above general package > license. Would a generic multi-line Comment: field be sufficient? > * An origin field in the files section where I can note the origin of that > set of files. For example, my packages contain some files copied from > GNU Libtool, and I currently say that in the LICENSE file. I don't want > to lose that information. This use case could be served by just > allowing a comment field in the files section, I suppose, and that may > be a better approach since it's more general. Perhaps it'd be sufficient to stick to a generic Comment: field for now, until there's some experience to see what other new fields are useful in the real world. This would be my personal preference. If others think an Origin: field would be good to have, I'll add it, my job as DEP driver is to record consensus. Can you suggest a wording? What do others think? Anyone for or against and Origin: field? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1281676915.2264.154.ca...@havelock