Package: debian-policy Severity: wishlist This is taken from https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2014/02/msg00021.html . I'm pasting here based on Russ Albery's suggestion that a change might be appropriate for copyright-format 1.1 (see https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2014/02/msg00022.html).
I'm happy to submit a proposed patch to copyright-format, or happy to let someone else take the lead, but I figured I'd start by filing a report to see if anyone else had alternate views or suggestions. --- I’m helping a colleague with the packaging of the ‘hidapi’ package (http://mentors.debian.net/package/hidapi). In one of our Files: paragraphs, we have the following: License: GPL-3.0 or BSD-3-clause or HIDAPI At the discretion of the user of this library, this software may be licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3, a BSD-Style license, or the original HIDAPI license as outlined in the LICENSE.txt, LICENSE-gpl3.txt, LICENSE-bsd.txt, and LICENSE-orig.txt files located at the root of the source distribution. These files may also be found in the public source code repository located at: http://github.com/signal11/hidapi . (where each of the abbreviated names is specified in a separate stand-alone license paragraph). This triggers the following lintian warnings: I: hidapi source: unused-license-paragraph-in-dep5-copyright bsd-3-clause (paragraph at line 63) I: hidapi source: unused-license-paragraph-in-dep5-copyright gpl-3.0 (paragraph at line 88) because split_licenses in source-copyright.pm ignores the abbreviated names in any license block that has a long form. My reading of DEP5 suggests that the License: block above is valid: First line: an abbreviated name for the license, or _expression_ giving alternatives (see Short names section for a list of standard abbreviations). […] Remaining lines: if left blank here, the file must include a stand-alone License paragraph matching each license short name listed on the first line. Otherwise, this field should either include the full text of the license(s) or include a pointer to the license file under /usr/share/common-licenses. […] I parse our License: block as having a first line with an “_expression_ giving alternatives,” and “remaining lines” that “include the full text of the license(s).” I don’t want to remove the “remaining lines” of the paragraph as I think it’s important to keep the full text of the license as written. I don’t want to remove the abbreviated name, as I think it has valuable pointers to the standalone license paragraphs. Is there a good option that I’m missing? I ask debian-policy because I believe that either: a) Lintian should be patched to not issue a warning in the situation I describe b) DEP5 should be clarified to rule out my interpretation c) (I have become confused, which is certainly possible) The following change to source-copyright.pm eliminates the warning (but this is intended to illuminate the working of the code, not as a recommended patch to lintian.) --- source-copyright.pm 2013-08-31 04:47:23.000000000 -0400 +++ /usr/share/lintian/checks/source-copyright.pm 2014-02-05 12:05:24.734173128 -0500 @@ -260,7 +260,8 @@ sub split_licenses { my ($license) = @_; return () unless defined($license); - return () if $license =~ /\n/; + # return () if $license =~ /\n/; + $license =~ s/\n.*//ms; $license =~ s/[(),]//; return map { "\L$_" } (split(m/\s++(?:and|or)\s++/, $license)); } -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20140206005506.1837.22297.report...@router.dienesfamily.org
