Re: DEP-5: additional requirements to use with upstream
On to, 2010-08-12 at 17:14 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> As mentioned in the other thread, one goal for DEP-5 for me is to make the
> format sufficiently rich to allow me to use it for the upstream LICENSE
> file. Towards that end, I have three changes I'd like to have.
Thanks, that's an interesting use case for the file format, and I'm glad
you brought it up.
> * An additional section with the same syntax as the Files section but with
> no Files field that would be used for documenting the copyright of the
> distribution as a whole. (In US law, this is called a compilation
> copyright.) This is not the same thing as a Files: * section, which
> would specify a default copyright and license for any individual file
> that doesn't have other information. In some edge cases, the
> compilation copyright and license can be different than the copyright
> and license of any individual file in the distribution.
I am uncomfortable signalling compilation copyright just with the
absence of a Files: field. It seems to error prone to me. It would be
better to be explicit, I think. What would be a good way of being
explicit in this case?
> * A comment field in the header section into which I can put statements
> like:
>
> All individual files with no other license statement are released
> under this license. Some files have additional copyright dates from
> earlier releases or may be owned by other copyright holders as noted
> in those files. Some files are individually released under different
> licenses, all of which are compatible with the above general package
> license.
Would a generic multi-line Comment: field be sufficient?
> * An origin field in the files section where I can note the origin of that
> set of files. For example, my packages contain some files copied from
> GNU Libtool, and I currently say that in the LICENSE file. I don't want
> to lose that information. This use case could be served by just
> allowing a comment field in the files section, I suppose, and that may
> be a better approach since it's more general.
Perhaps it'd be sufficient to stick to a generic Comment: field for now,
until there's some experience to see what other new fields are useful in
the real world. This would be my personal preference.
If others think an Origin: field would be good to have, I'll add it, my
job as DEP driver is to record consensus. Can you suggest a wording?
What do others think? Anyone for or against and Origin: field?
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