Re: DEP-5 meta: New co-driver; current issues
On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 01:27:12AM +1200, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
> On to, 2010-08-12 at 14:59 +0200, Bernd Zeimetz wrote:
> > - Personally I find the format unnecessarily complicated and much more annoying
> > to use than writing a normal debian/copyright file, especially for complicated
> > cases.
>
> You're not required to use it. If you want to improve the format, please
> make concrete proposals, or at least explain why it is complicated and
I actually second Bernd's comments. It seems uneccessarily complex and
so very much harder to read. It's especially insane if you have multiple
authors and where the license stays the same but the copyright years change.
I tried to use it once on one program and just ditched it. It only made
it more difficult for me and for anyone who read it.
You really need to stop and think what is this for? What information is
important to have and what can be found in the source files later if
someone really cares.
My suggestions:
* Split out the authors and the copyright dates into one chunk. The
fact that fileA is copyright 2005 Joe and fileB is copyright 2006
Fred and then fileC is copyright 2006 both of this is completely
irrelevant for most people, just that Joe and Fred have copyright
of some parts of the package is enough.
* Make it possible to say "this package is licensed under foo
except fileA which is licensed under bar"
> More importantly, making debian/copyright be machine parseable provides
> some immediate benefits, without having to wait for a solution to the
> big, difficult problem.
What are these benefits? I am not doubting there would be some but
maybe knowing the benefits can drive the format a little? Just because
you can specify the license, year and authors to the n'th degree
doesn't mean you should.
- Craig
--
Craig Small GnuPG:1C1B D893 1418 2AF4 45EE 95CB C76C E5AC 12CA DFA5
http://www.enc.com.au/ csmall at : enc.com.au
http://www.debian.org/ Debian GNU/Linux, software should be Free
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