Hi, DEP-5 as defined in http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/ does not have any clause allowing us to skip license entries for certain class of files. In practice, many packages lack entries for autotools generated files which come with very permissive license with mostly identical but not quite the same copyright phrases which reqire us to quote them separately. I am talking about autotools files such as: PERMISSIVE * */Makefile.in * m4/*.m4 * configure * INSTALL * aclocal.m4 GPL-2.0+ with autoconf exception * compile * depcomp * missing * py-compile * test-driver * m4/introspection.m4 * m4/intltool.m4 GPL-2.0+ with libtool exception * ltmain.sh GPL-3.0+ with autoconf exception * config.sub * config.guess MIT * install-sh ( I think the following must not be skipped.) ( LGPL-2.0+ ) ( * m4/vapigen.m4 ) FTP master people seem not to worry such loose practice of drop listing them. This gap between policy and practice is the problem for tools handling it. My debmake package is one of it. It helps to * create the template copyright file and * check the previous copyright file against the updated source tree. Currently my debmake package pedantically lists and requires them per policy; and generates the long template copyright file.(*1) By having such useless entries per policy is not really useful for the license compliance check purpose and requires extra editorial work for no real benefit. (More noise!) It may be good to have a set of specifically defined file types for exclusion in DEP-5 policy. Then we can skip listing them in the copyright file. The helper script can generate a template for the copyright file in line with the actual practice and not to contradict with the DEP-5 policy. Regards, Osamu (*1) The ibus package used the debmake and lists such files.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature