Re: Non-recompilable binaries in source and binary packages (Adobe Flash strikes again)

[Brian Nelson <pyro@debian.org>]

Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org> writes:

>>> I don't think anyone disagrees with this, including the ftp-masters.  The
>>> question is whether the source package also needs a copyright file of its
>>> own.
>> As we are distributing these files, it seems reasonable to document their
>> licence. But the Policy is not clear about that requirement.
>
> We distribute source and binary. So the copyright file has to document
> the contents of them all. Most commonly packages have exactly 1 of those
> files, copied everywhere. Then it has to document all, and the file
> ending up in binary packages will obviously document the source tarball
> too.
> Now, you can go and split the file, and have one per binary package
> seperated, as well as one documenting all of it once for the source.
> Besides that being a fair bit of useless extra work, for both you and
> ftpmaster, it seems pretty pointless to do, as the only thing that
> happens with just one file for all is "slightly more text in the file as
> the binary may need".

Aren't the licenses of source files generally documented by upstream,
either by e.g. the COPYING file or inline within the files themselves?
Why is there a requirement to duplicate this information in the
copyright file?

A binary package needs a copyright file because the copyright notices
would otherwise be stripped out or obfuscated.  That's not true for the
source package though.

-- 
Captain Logic is not steering this tugboat.