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Bug#768292: marked as done (debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files)



Your message dated Sat, 31 Dec 2016 15:18:53 -0800
with message-id <8737h3bsbm.fsf@hope.eyrie.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#768292: Add the MPL licenses to common-licenses
has caused the Debian Bug report #768292,
regarding debian-policy: please allow copyright file to refer to license text in separate files
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact owner@bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
768292: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=768292
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: debian-policy
Severity: wishlist

[X-Debbugs-Cc: ftpmaster@debian.org because I know the Policy maintainers
don't actually control what is or isn't acceptable in the archive in this
respect.]

Some packages currently have stanzas like this in their copyright files:

    License: MPL-2.0
     The complete text of the Mozilla Public License 2.0 can be found in
     the `MPL-2.0' file in the same directory as this file.

It is not clear to me whether Debian Policy allows this. I would like it
to be specifically allowed, unless there is some good reason not to; if
ftp-master tools like whatever tool generates
<https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html> need to be able to extract these
files, it would be OK to prescribe some fixed naming convention, such as
/usr/share/doc/${package}/${name}.license or (if they are also required
to have a prescribed location in the source package)
debian/${name}.license.

One package that would benefit from this is adwaita-icon-theme. It currently
has an 87K copyright file[1], mechanically generated from a Perl script[2]
and four verbatim Creative Commons licenses[3] which are re-indented for
copyright-format by the script. If I'd known it was OK to do so, I would
much rather have shipped those four licenses as-is and just made the
copyright file refer to them.

If the licenses are allowed to be compressed (see also [4]) then
so much the better.

Regards,
    S

[1] http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/copyright?revision=43390&view=markup
[2] http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/copyright.pl?revision=43390&view=markup
[3] http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/adwaita-icon-theme/debian/
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=491055

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Hi Santiago,

It looks like there was a breakdown of communication from Policy
maintenance to you with an addition to common-licenses.  Following
discussion in Bug#768292, we decided to add MPL-1.1 and MPL-2.0 to
common-licenses, and the relevant Policy change landed in 3.9.7.0.  But
something went wrong and the Policy bug was never closed, and I don't
think you were ever told for inclusion of those files in base-files.

I'll go ahead and file a bug against base-files for your tracking, and am
closing out the Policy bug with this message.  Policy says to include:

    /usr/share/common-licenses/MPL-1.1
    /usr/share/common-licenses/MPL-2.0

You can find canonical copies of those files in, among other places,
/usr/share/doc/firefox in the current (5.1.0-1) firefox package in
unstable.

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

--- End Message ---

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