Re: Copyright License Proposal

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

Thanks for the input, Russ.

I'll give a more detailed response after I've taken some time to gather a few statistics, and read a few documents to test my current assumptions.

One thing I can say now, that seems like it might not be clear...

My goal is to create tools that help CPAN Authors to become the Debian Maintainers of their *OWN* distributions.
My goal is *NOT* to create tools for automatically making Debian Packages from other people's CPAN modules.

As the author of over 100 CPAN dists (many of them related to packaging automation), and a believer in a Debian based future, I am keen to:

1. Get all my dists packaged properly for Debian
2. Automate the processes for doing so
3. Share the process with other CPAN authors (in a trivial to use, but rigorous and educational way)
   

From that perspective, it should be every author's right to opt into trusting a tool that helps them expand the audience of their works to Debian.

I am hopeful that the two worlds can work together in (mostly automated) harmony.

Cheers, Ingy

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> wrote:

Ingy dot Net <ingy@ingy.net> writes:

> 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

The question is how do you generate the debian/copyright file?  Currently,
META.yml doesn't contain enough information to do that.

>    - 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.

I'm dubious about this, from personal experience, particularly for modules
containing XS components.

There are a lot of things on CPAN whose authors seem to *think* are under
a single license, but that's not the same thing.  If you actually look at
the source, there are often files under different licenses, and different
copyright notices are very common.  This is particularly true of modules
with XS components.  (The licenses are compatible, so this is usually not
any major problem, but Debian requires documenting those licenses.)

>    - Based on Charles' followup, it seems like we can converge on a 99%

>    solution for accepted licenses and texts.

I think Charles is talking about something different than I am.  Note that
Debian simply does not accept URLs, to anywhere, including SPDX, as a
substitute for actual license text in debian/copyright, nor is it okay to
just take the license text off of SPDX and assume that matches the license
text actually present in the source code.

>    - Note, it is very uncommon for CPAN authors to include a LICENSE file,

>    and the CPAN toolchain is not moving in that direction.

Which means that you can't generate packages suitable for uploading to
Debian solely from the information contained in CPAN.  If that's not your
goal, then it's not a serious problem.  I just wanted to be sure that you
realized that, and that integrating the package into Debian will require
additional work to construct a debian/copyright file.

--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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