Re: Script to generate common license texts
On ശനി 05 സെപ്റ്റംബര് 2015 12:01 രാവിലെ, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Hi Balasankar,
>
> Quoting Balasankar C (2015-09-04 19:38:20)
>> Is there any script which takes abbreviation of a license (like
>> GPL-3+) as input and generates the license text that can be used in
>> debian/copyright (80 character wrapped, one space before each line,
>> paragraph separated with periods - the whole deal.
>
> Please beware that debian/copyright strings should reflect the actual
> _verbatim_ text stated by the copyright holders, not any generic
> _boilerplate_ proposed by e.g. the Free Software Foundation.
Yeah. I know that. Why I asked for such a script is that some of the
packages I dealt with just mentioned "Released under XYZ license.
Copyright 20xx MNO" without any explicit license text (they should've,
but they don't) which means they just use the _boilerplate_ license text
that is commonly used. For example, many Ruby gems are Expat licensed
and use boilerplate text.
Being that said, I believe debian/copyright should be manually rechecked
for confirmation as copyright info is one of the things we care most in
Debian. :)
The scripts would just be used to reduce the time in searching for the
_boilerplate_ text in the Internet (or other packages), and that too
only if the upstream doesn't provide any verbatim text.
I fail to provide a general use case where this can be directly applied,
but to share one of my experiences I recently dealt with a package that
was released under W3C license (that only, no verbatim text) and I spent
quite some time searching for the license text to be included in
debian/copyright (not the complete license text, but something like we
have for GPL-3.0+ - the one I mentioned in my original mail)
--
Regards
Balasankar C
http://balasankarc.in
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