Bug#649679: [copyright-format] Clarify what distinguishes files and stand-alone license paragraphs.

[Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>]

Le Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 02:49:38PM -0800, Steve Langasek a écrit :
> 
> I don't think that should be legal either however; we allow "extra fields"
> to be added to any paragraph, but I don't believe the intent is to allow
> *defined* fields to be used in paragraphs where they are not specified to be
> permitted - only to allow new field names to be used.  So I think something
> like the attached patch should be applied.  Thoughts?

I am sometimes using an extra Source field in some Files paragraphs, when they
define works that are not the creation of the main authors, especially when it
was difficult to find their original upstream location.

Of course, I agree that making a stand-alone License paragraph with an extra
Fiels field would be an horror.  But I am inclined to think that it is obvious
enough that we do not need to constrain the syntax.  With the change you
propose extra checks are needed while parsing.

If nevertheless the consensus is to apply your changes, I would like to suggest
to normalise the vocabulary: either “extra fields” or “additional fields”, but
the current patch uses both.  The Policy's chapter 5 uses “additional”, so this
is where my choice would go even if it will increase the difficulty to search
for previous discussions on the topic.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles