On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 11:47:37AM +0100, Rene Engelhard wrote: > Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote: > > Joerg Jaspert wrote: > >>>>> The real problem here is that FTP masters require the list of copyright > >>>>> holders to be up-to-date each time the package goes through NEW. > >>>>> Whatever justification exists for this requirement, I???m starting to > >>>>> find > >>>>> it unacceptable. If a package has to go through NEW, it takes about > >>>>> twice as much time to update this list than to do the actual packaging > >>>>> work. > >>>>> Why is this list needed? > >>>> Often the license requires it. For instance the BSD license says, > >>>> "Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright". > > > > *binary* > > But we do distribute binaries in the debs - and debian/copyright is > not only for the source but also ends up in the deb.
Actually, Policy does not make mandatory for the .deb file to contain a copyright file at all: `/usr/share/doc/<package>' may be a symbolic link to another directory in `/usr/share/doc' only if the two packages both come from the same source and the first package Depends on the second.[2] (I am not a fan of this particular paragraph of Policy, but that is irrelevant, and there is a number of packages taking advantage of that) Policy also allows package to refer to /usr/share/common-licenses (part of base-files) for actual license texts (for a limited set of license). So we already allow packages to reference other packages for license informations. Binary package referencing its source package for detailed license information is not quite a stretch. Cheers, -- Bill. <ballo...@debian.org> Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org