Bug#884227: debian-policy: please add zlib to common licenses
Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
> Markus Koschany wrote:
>> License: zlib
>> Source: https://opensource.org/licenses/Zlib
>> Example packages:
>> https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#The_zlib.2Flibpng_License_.28Zlib.29
> Hm. The license says
> 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
> And part of 'This notice' is a copyright line that varies from package
> to package. Since the license text is very short, it seems simplest for
> packages to keep reproducing the license text --- it's not too painful
> disk space-wise and it is much clearer license-wise.
> So I don't believe it belongs in common-licenses.
I agree. I don't like the idea of including very short licenses in
common-licenses. I think it just adds indirection to no real purpose and
won't really save maintainers significant time. I'm less opposed to this
one than to the MIT or BSD licenses that have substantial variation in
wording, but I still don't think it's a good idea.
common-licenses has the most benefit for very long licenses that people
then copy verbatim.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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