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Re: debian/copyright in source package



> On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:41:16AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > I think this has come up before, and my recollection of where we ended up
> > in the past is that there probably isn't any *legal* reason to require
> > debian/copyright in source packages.  However, there's a substantial
> > *practical* reason, namely that the existing ftpmaster tooling depends on
> > the existence of a source debian/copyright file for the way that they do
> > license reviews, and that some tooling and process changes would be
> > required before we can relax this requirement.
 
Le Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 10:37:20PM +0200, Santiago Vila a écrit :
> Yes, I think this practical reason (the ability to extract
> automatically copyright files from source packages) is the main reason
> why debian/copyright is required.
> 
> So we could just add it to policy as a rationale.

Dear Santiago and everybody,

how about the following ?  (in section 4.5)

--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -1822,12 +1822,16 @@ zope.
      <sect id="dpkgcopyright">
        <heading>Copyright: <file>debian/copyright</file></heading>
        <p>
          Every {+source+} package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy
          of its copyright information and distribution license in the
          file [-<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>-]{+<file>debian/copyright</file><footnote>+}
{+          The <file>debian/copyright</file> file must be present, to+}
{+          ease the review of new packages and to facilitate automatic+}
{+          extraction of this information.  It may be generated from+}
{+          templates, but not at build time.</footnote>+}
          (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details). Also see
          <ref id="pkgcopyright"> for further considerations related to
          copyrights for packages.
        </p>
      </sect>
      <sect>

Even after that change, the sentence "Every package must be accompanied by a
verbatim copy of its copyright information and distribution license in the file
/usr/share/doc/package/copyright" still appears twice in the Policy.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan


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