Le Mon, Dec 07, 2009 at 12:26:52AM -0800, Steve Langasek a écrit : > On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 03:56:51PM +0100, Thibaut Paumard wrote: > > > I remember that debian/copyright should not only list where the > > source was downloaded from, but also the files which were removed by > > the packager and the motivation for the removal (DFSG, patents, > > large convenience copy of a library...). At least, that's how I > > interpret this (from [1], I cannot find an excerpt from policy): > > > "3) Include a description of how you obtained the upstream source > > tarball. This should be sufficient for anybody to duplicate the > > process immediately, but don't worry too much if it isn't (eg, the > > server is not public or no longer accessible)." > > This is not a requirement of Debian Policy; there are two other ways that > Policy already recommends communicating this information: > > - in the debian/README.source file > - by way of a get-orig-source target in debian/rules > > Providing the same information in debian/copyright would be redundant, and > should be avoided. > Given that Policy says to put this elsewhere than debian/copyright, I don't > think it makes sense for DEP-5 to specify such sections; this is probably > better addressed by including support for free-form comments, as suggested > elsewhere.
Dear Thibaut and Steve, Given that the purpose of DEP-5 is to make information available to machines, my feeling is also that there is no need for a new field, unless there is a commitemnt to parse the license information about removed files in a programmatic way. While duplication of information should be avoided, there are still a couple of justifications why the license of removed files could be summarised. First, most get-orig-source targets in debian/rules let the removed files transit on the user's machine. Similarly, some VCS that are available through ‘debcheckout’ also contain a copy of the removed files in their upstream branch. For these cases, I think that debian/copyright is a relevant place to declare the license of the removed files, since they may actually be really there! In addition to free-form comments, my understanding of DEP-5 is that it is open in the similar way as mail headers. Therefore a group of people, for instance a packaging team, can federate on a more formal representation than free-form comments if they like. I would therefore recommend to Thibaut to experiment a bit on different possible implementations if free-form comments are not enough. If there is interest I can contribute ideas: I was actually trying to draft a similar enhancement last September. By the way, there was an interesting discussion in bugs.debian.org/521810 a couple of monthes ago, which ended on the conclusion that adding a “X-” prefix on extra fields in Debian control files does not bring much benefit. I propose to apply this to DEP-5: ### Extra fields. Extra fields can be added to any section. It is not recommended to prefix their name by **`X-`**. I hope it can contribute to ease experimentation. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
