Re: DEP-5 meta: New co-driver; current issues

[Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>]

On pe, 2010-08-13 at 09:08 +1000, Craig Small wrote:
> 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.

That would indicate there is a bug in the DEP-5 spec. It is, in my very
non-humble opinion, not acceptable for DEP-5 to make it harder to
maintain debian/copyright in DEP-5 format than as a free-form one,
except for minimal markup. It seems that the process so far has created
an impression that a DEP-5 file should be incredibly specific and
detailed, and we'll have to fix that.

> 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.

The answer (obviously to me, but not so obviously to others) is that it
should have the same information as a free-form copyright file, at the
same precision as the free-form file would have, while allowing more
precision for those who want provide it.

> 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.

Files: *
Copyright: 2005-2006, Joe
           2006, Fred

But I'll bring this up later in a separate thread, since there is a
detail that may need discussing.

>   * Make it possible to say "this package is licensed under foo 
>     except fileA which is licensed under bar"

Files: *
License: foo

Files: fileA
License: 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?

>From me initial mail in this thread: 'For example, answering questions
like "what stuff is GPLv2 only, and therefore incompatible with
GPLv3?".' (With 'stuff' being 'package', and not 'file'.)