Re: DEP-5: general file syntax

[Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>]

On ti, 2010-08-17 at 18:24 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Those exchanges aren't the actual license or copyright information, which
> can still be stated in a structured form.  They're usually just defenses
> of why thet claimed license information is what it is (when it may, for
> example, contradict or supplement information included in the source
> files).

Hmm. If the e-mails (or whatever) modify or clarify the license, should
not the e-mails be considered part of the license information?

        License: other
         This software is released under the GPLv2 blahblah.
         .
         From: Upstream Author <author@upstream.example.com>
         Message-Id: <loof.lirpa@upstream.example.com>
         Date: Mon, Apr 01 2010 04:01:00 +0401
         Subject: License clarification
         .
         When I say GPL I actually mean LGPL, sorry about that.

If the e-mail is just a clarification to the license and does not modify
it, then I guess License is not the right place. Rather than munge it
into Comment, I guess we need a new field. However, how often do these
things happen? If it is very rarely, we could just live with appending
them to License.

Having part of the file be non-machine-readable might be an option, but
I have the feeling that for large debian/copyright files, it'd be easier
to have these e-mails near the paragraphs that concern them, otherwise
it'll get too difficult to keep track of things. So a structured
approach would be my preference here.