Re: Copyright License Proposal

[Ingy dot Net <ingy@ingy.net>]

Thanks for the replies thus far. I'll weigh in a bit more now...

To Guy's reply: I'm not sure I fully grok the implications of your one sentence reply, but META.yml also belongs to the author. It is generated on the author side before packaging. The license is chosen based on actual copyright info that the author has provided in the POD, thus the author has full control and responsibility over it. I don't see a problem. Full GO. :)

To Russ, let me give you an idea of the Debian::Build anticipated workflow:

• make debian
• assert/generate META.yml
• if 'license' is defined and common, use it, with matching debian/copyright info
  
• if not, stop. tell author how to fix the problem.
  

Other stuff for Russ:

• Multiple licenses in a single distribution is not a reality in CPAN world. At least not a reality worth making a big deal about in this context.
  
• Based on Charles' followup, it seems like we can converge on a 99% solution for accepted licenses and texts.
• For the remaining 1% the toolchain can definitely accept custom licenses for Debian.
• Note, it is very uncommon for CPAN authors to include a LICENSE file, and the CPAN toolchain is not moving in that direction.

To Charles: This is great information. I know David Golden personally. I'll take it up with him to have the toolchain move in the SPDX direction. The META spec allows for custom fields so I'll suggest that we start using SPDX right away. At least we can add a mapping between META and SPDX in the META spec. Thanks!

Cheers, Ingy

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> wrote:

Dear Ingy and everybody,

one way that may help to automate the creation of Debian copyright files from
META.yml files would be to use the same license strings as in the SPDX project.
This list has a great potential to become a canonical reference, as for
instance the OSI and Debian are converging on it.

About SPDX short names:

 http://spdx.org/licenses/
 http://spdx.org/content/celebrate-small-victories-and-cheers-open-source-initiative

About META.yml license strings:

 http://search.cpan.org/~dagolden/CPAN-Meta-2.110930/lib/CPAN/Meta/Spec.pm#license

For works where there is more than one copyright holder and license, I would
recommend to the CPAN author to write a machine-readable copyright summary.
The the “DEP 5” or SPDX formats have a different granularity and may fit
different preferences.  Both of them are not released yet, but I recommend
having a look, as they are close to completion.  For the DEP 5 format, there is
even a parser in CPAN.

About DEP 5:

 http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/
 http://ddumont.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/debian-copyright-dep5-parsereditorvalidatormigrator-is-released/

The SPDX spec:

 http://spdx.org/spec

Have a nice day,

--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan