Re: parsable copyright format 1.0 (jessie release goals)
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 01:43:31PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> Since it ever existed, I wrote my debian/copyright file using the
> new format. It's quite well established, and it isn't hard to do
> the switch. It is just a bit boring work though.
>
> I do think it would be nice to be able to parse all of the
> archive to know what kind of license we're using. If we all work
> a bit on our own packages, it should be fine, and at some
> point, we should move forward. But does anyone think it is
> too much work? I would understand that point of view.
>
> Thoughts anyone?
I would regret that the new debian/copyright format would become a jessie
release goal. The cost/benefit ratio is, in my opinion, very low. It costs
quite some human time to recode the upstream copyright and license information,
and I have not yet seen the benefit of more easy parsing by software. The
licenses in the upstream source code are already in text, so they are already
in a format suitable for parsing by software. In 2013 I don't see the need for
humans to recode text to be even more easily parseable by software. Our human
time would be better spent on developing tools to extract the copyright and
license information from the upstream sources, in my opinion. If we develop a
really smart tool, then most debian/copyright can be fully generated
automatically in a format designed to be well readable by humans.
Regards,
Bart Martens
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