Hi, [...] > > FWIW, Apache itself does not follow what you consider a license > application requirement. > > For example, the very web page you linked to above, has no preamble and > just says "Copyright 2011 The Apache Software Foundation, Licensed under > the Apache License, Version 2.0" at the bottom. Moreover, Apache httpd > sources use a different preamble as well (e.g., > httpd-2.2.17/srclib/apr/mmap/unix/mmap.c -- the first file I checked). > Indeed it does not use the suggested text, but it still uses a lot more text than polygraph does. > As for being "extremely hard" to check, it seems like an exaggeration. > Would the following preamble really leave a lot of question with regard > to the distribution license? > > > /* Web Polygraph http://www.web-polygraph.org/ > > * (C) 2003-2006 The Measurement Factory > > * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 */ > The good thing is: polygraph seems to consistently use this text. Hence indeed it can be pretty easily checked by testing for this particular pattern. Yes, my statement might have been over-exaggerated, but at bit more of standardization whenever such proposals exist would help us all a lot. > As you can see, Polygraph preamble uses the exact same text used by > Apache site. That text is a part of what is recommended by Apache > License; it just does not repeat what is already said in Apache License > itself. > I pretty much fail to see in what way it uses "exact the same text" - is it the words "Licensed under ..." you are referring to? Then at least you missing the first two lines of the Apache-proposed text, which is the copyright information. Here you are in fact certainly lacking sufficient information, because (C) is not generally equivalent to "Copyright" under all copyright laws. > > IMO, we are not doing anything wrong here, but we should be pragmatic > about this issue: Humans should have no problems, but if the problem is > with automated tools used by Debian, we should try to accommodate them. > There is probably some flexibility here because they apparently work > fine with other packages using custom preambles, such as Apache httpd. > For example, perhaps including the URL of the Apache license would be > sufficient to pass those automated checks? > I'd suggest the following procedure: if this copyright/license statement gets ack'ed by ftp-master, i.e., polygraph is accepted into the archive, then this license header must be sufficient (not only for polygraph, but also for other packages). It's then time to file a bug against the devscripts package to acknowledge this fact. Thanks a lot, Michael
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