Bug#833709: Please add the MIT/Expat license to common-licenses
On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 05:10:52PM +0100, Simon McVittie wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Aug 2016 at 21:00:12 -1000, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Numerous packages use the MIT/Expat license, and currently all of those
> > packages need to include it in their copyright files.
>
> Although Policy does not say so, the ftp-masters require the license
> grant to be quoted in the copyright file, even for common-licenses. [1][2]
Can't quote something that doesn't exist in the upstream source.
> For the Expat license and other simple licenses, the license grant *is*
> the license, so putting it in common-licenses would make no difference
> to the length or complexity of copyright files unless the ftp-masters
> were willing to change their policy to accept something like
>
> Files: foo
> Copyright: © 2000 Mickey Mouse
> License: Expat
>
> (or its non-machine-readable equivalent) without any further text.
I wouldn't suggest making it quite *that* concise, because that leaves
out a human-readable cross-reference. I'd suggest an explicit
reference, like this:
Debian systems provide the MIT license in /usr/share/common-licenses/MIT
> However, for the specific case of the Expat license, if I'm reading the
> license correctly you are required to include the license grant with the
> (binary form of the) software. For compiled code, the copyright file is
> likely the most convenient way to achieve that.
If the upstream source just says:
license = "MIT"
then that should suffice.
> It would be great if Policy described what the ftp-masters actually
> require and why, so that maintainers could provide everything that Debian
> needs to avoid legal trouble but no more. At the moment, Policy is rather
> more vague than the actual requirements to get software into Debian; there
> seems to be some (unwritten?) policy based on ftp-master consensus.
Agreed. I'd prefer a written policy, and preferably one that doesn't
introduce any unnecessary boilerplate.
- Josh Triplett
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