Re: RFS: polygraph
On Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:36:25 +0100, Michael Tautschnig <mt@debian.org> wrote:
> 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.
>
I have looked at licensecheck. It matches the following regexp:
/under the Apache License, Version ([^ ]+) \(the License\)/
Changing "Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0" line to
"Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the License)" makes
licensecheck detect both license and copyright correctly. IMO the
licensecheck regexp should be improved.
Regards,
Dmitry
> Thanks a lot,
> Michael
>
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