Re: dh_copyright (was: Re: Seeking new members for the DFSG team (Re: Bits from the DPL))
On Sun, Nov 16, 2025, at 5:48 PM, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> Adrian Bunk <bunk@debian.org> writes:
>
>> A better workflow would be something like:
>> - a dh_copyright creates and updates debian/copyright
>> - the build aborts on non-trivial changes[1]
>> - the maintainer reviews the changes when the build aborted
>> (including after the initial packaging)
>
> Yes! What do you think about designing it similar to how we handle
> debian/*.symbols file? That is, dh_copyright would generate a
> debian/copyright based on upstream source code and compare that with
> debian/copyright and barf on diffs? With some suitable override or hint
> mechanism for known mis-interpretations.
FWIW, this is similar to how debcargo operates for all the debian/ files
it generates (which includes d/copyright, d/control, d/rules and
d/tests/control) - if there is an override in place, it will generate
a hint file next to the generated file, so that it's possible to track
and diff over time. for d/copyright, it always generates an override
that just contains a FIXME, since we never want to use the auto-generated
one without a human checking it.
the heuristic for generating copyright information is very simple though,
it mainly maps upstream metadata and greps for some of the usual patterns.
and of course, debcargo works one step before dh - its purpose is to generate
the source package (skeleton), it is not called at build time.
Reply to: