Bug#1111126: Copyright format does not explain how to describe a license text itself

[Julian Gilbey <julian@d-and-j.net>]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 12:27:52AM +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Version: 4.7.2.0
> Severity: normal
> 
> The firmware-nonfree source package has files under many different
> licenses, so there is no catch-all '*' pattern in debian/copyright.
> 
> As a result, lintian complains:
> 
> W: firmware-nonfree source: file-without-copyright-information Apache-2 [debian/copyright]

You could work around it by adding a list of all these license files
to debian/copyright:

Files:
  Apache-2
  GPL-2
  ...
Copyright: various
License: license-text
 These are the licence texts themselves.

Normally, these licenses are captured by the Files: * catch-all, so
this doesn't usually appear.  I have no idea who holds the copyright
to the licenses themselves and what the License on the license is....

Best wishes,

   Julian