Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
> I maintain the position I argued earlier in this same thread:
>
> The provenance of the source of any Debian package should be recorded
> explicitly, and the copyright file is the canonical location for that
> information. For packages where “it was only ever a Debian native
> package” is true, that fact is not obvious and should still be
> recorded in the same place.
To express that as a patch:
--- old/dep5.mdwn
+++ new/dep5.mdwn
@@ -149,17 +149,18 @@
will usually be written as a list of RFC5322 addresses or URIs.
* **`Source`**
- * Required, unless there is no upstream
+ * Required
* Syntax: formatted text, no synopsis
* An explanation from where the upstream source came from.
Typically this would be a URL, but it might be a free-form
- explanation. If the upstream source has been modified to remove
- non-free parts, that should be explained in this field.
- This field is mandatory, unless there are no upstream sources,
- which is mainly the case for native Debian packages.
- See [Debian Policy,
- 12.5](http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile)
- for details.
+ explanation.
+ The [Debian Policy, §12.5](http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile)
+ requires the upstream source location recorded in this file unless
+ there are no upstream sources; if the package source did not come
+ from any upstream (if, for example, the package is native to
+ Debian), that should be explained in this field.
+ If the upstream source has been modified to remove non-free parts,
+ that should be explained in this field.
* **`Disclaimer`**
* Optional
Keeping this field optional makes the provenance of the source more
likely to be clear. It is minimal effort to support that aim (if the
package is native to Debian, just say so explicitly in this field).
It also has the benefit that the parser doesn't need to depend on state
outside this file, making the goal of machine-parseability easier
(though that is not the main motivation for this patch).
--
\ “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to tell the truth |
`\ and to expose lies.” —Noam Chomsky, 1967-02-23 |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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