Bug#1032673: lintian: inconsistent-appstream-metadata-license does not correctly match GFDL licenses
Package: lintian
Version: 2.116.3
Severity: wishlist
Lintian currently produces warnings like the following:
inconsistent-appstream-metadata-license appdata.xml (gfdl-1.3 != gfdl-niv-1.3+) [debian/copyright]
AppStream metadata defines a specific short list of acceptable licenses as described at:
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Metadata.html#tag-metadata_license
One of the available licenses uses the following syntax:
GFDL-1.3
AppStream's documentation says that "The license codes correspond to the identifiers found at the SPDX OpenSource License Registry."
However, SPDX does not use the simplified GFDL-1.3 syntax:
https://spdx.org/licenses/
Rather, they describe the licence using the following syntax, which describe six subcategories of GFDL usage:
GFDL-1.3-invariants-only
GFDL-1.3-invariants-or-later
GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-or-later
GFDL-1.3-only
GFDL-1.3-or-later
Debian similarly uses specific syntax to describe subcategories of the GFDL:
https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/#license-short-name
"For licenses that have multiple versions in use, the short name is formed from the general short name of the license family,
followed by a dash and the version number. If the version number is omitted, the lowest version number is implied.
When the license grant permits using the terms of any later version of that license, add a plus sign to the end of the short name.
For example, the short name GPL refers to the GPL version 1 and is equivalent to GPL-1, although the latter is clearer and therefore preferred.
If the package may be distributed under the GPL version 1 or any later version, use a short name of GPL-1+."
"GFDL GNU Free Documentation License 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, or 1.3. Use GFDL-NIV instead if there are no Front-Cover or Back-Cover Texts or Invariant Sections."
"GFDL-NIV GNU Free Documentation License, with no Front-Cover or Back-Cover Texts or Invariant Sections. Use the same version numbers as GFDL."
Because the AppStream specification does not allow syntax that is any more precise than GFDL-1.3,
Lintian should consider this to match against any of the following lincenses in debain/copyright:
GFDL-1.3
GFDL-1.3+
GFDL-NIV-1.3
GFDL-NIV-1.3+
Similar matching should be applied for the AppStream's GFDL-1.1 and GDFL-1.2 licenses.
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