Package: debian-policy Version: 3.8.0.1 Severity: wishlist Hi,
In Debian Policy section 12.5 "Copyright information", it can be read that debian/copyright may not be compressed: "Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license in the file /usr/share/doc/package/copyright. This file must neither be compressed nor be a symbolic link." I propose to change it to: "Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license in the file /usr/share/doc/package/copyright (may be compressed with gzip -9). This file must not be a symbolic link." Policy encourages all other documentation files to be installed compressed. I've done some searching for the reasons for this exception but couldn't find any. Thinking a bit about it, one reason I can think of is to make it more accessible. But in order to get the file installed in the first place, one needs a host of tools including a gzip decompressor (via dpkg). I therefore think that if you can get the file installed, you'll also be able to read it. Compressing all copyright files on my 'standard' system yields a 8 MB space saving. Not an extreme amount on a normal system (but why waste it?), but this may be even more significant in a minimal chroot installation. What prompted me to file this request though, is bug #448615 where Neil Williams requests compressed copyright files explicitly for embedded use. I couldn't find a reason why that would be acceptable for embedded systems but not for regular systems - so I hope it can be changed "upstream" instead of specifically for emdebian, so that everyone benefits from it and no exceptions need to be made. Thijs
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