Hi, I'm working to update my packages to use %license, and I have two questions:
1: Must license files be placed in /usr/share/licenses/<package>, or is it only required that they are tagged as license files in the package? For example, if a package's build system installs a license in /usr/share/doc/<package>, is the spec required to move it from there to /usr/share/licenses/<package>, or is it enough to tag it with %license in the file list?
2: When a package has a list of authors separate from the license file, should that list also be tagged as a license file, or is it considered regular documentation? It seems to me that *who* gives out a license is important information that belongs together with the license.
Björn Persson
On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 04:38:16PM +0100, Björn Persson wrote:
2: When a package has a list of authors separate from the license file, should that list also be tagged as a license file, or is it considered regular documentation? It seems to me that *who* gives out a license is important information that belongs together with the license.
With a big "I'm not Fedora Legal" disclaimer, I think the answer here is really... it depends.
The intent here is primarily to make it possible to exclude bulky documentation for containers and other space-constrained installations while keeping legally-required license statements in place. Authorship files may or may not be part of that.
A second benefit is deduplicating license files themselves, which is very minor for _space_ but might be useful in determining slight variations in licenses — either intentional or accidental (or just things like "FSF address changed again"). This seems very unlikely to apply to AUTHORS files.
Matthew Miller wrote:
On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 04:38:16PM +0100, Björn Persson wrote:
2: When a package has a list of authors separate from the license file, should that list also be tagged as a license file, or is it considered regular documentation? It seems to me that *who* gives out a license is important information that belongs together with the license.
With a big "I'm not Fedora Legal" disclaimer, I think the answer here is really... it depends.
The intent here is primarily to make it possible to exclude bulky documentation for containers and other space-constrained installations while keeping legally-required license statements in place. Authorship files may or may not be part of that.
Then I suppose I should ask Fedora Legal, so I'm CCing the legal list.
If it were a legal requirement, then I suppose it would also apply when the author's name is written in a README file together with a lot of other information.
I don't remember seeing any explicit requirement to include a separate file with a list of authors. It just feels weird to have a license without a licensor. There are some licenses that contain phrases like "the above copyright notice", but in those cases it's in the same file.
Björn Persson
On 03/02/2015 03:26 PM, Björn Persson wrote:
2: When a package has a list of authors separate from the license file,
should that list also be tagged as a license file, or is it considered regular documentation? It seems to me that *who* gives out a license is important information that belongs together with the license.
With a big "I'm not Fedora Legal" disclaimer, I think the answer here is really... it depends.
The intent here is primarily to make it possible to exclude bulky documentation for containers and other space-constrained installations while keeping legally-required license statements in place. Authorship files may or may not be part of that.
Then I suppose I should ask Fedora Legal, so I'm CCing the legal list.
If it were a legal requirement, then I suppose it would also apply when the author's name is written in a README file together with a lot of other information.
I don't remember seeing any explicit requirement to include a separate file with a list of authors. It just feels weird to have a license without a licensor. There are some licenses that contain phrases like "the above copyright notice", but in those cases it's in the same file.
I've never seen a license which required the inclusion of the copyright holders that didn't include those copyright holders in the license text.
We tag the license text as %license to ensure that it always gets installed as part of the transaction, even when other docs are excluded. I don't foresee any situation in which a file containing a list of copyright holders that is distinct and separate from the file containing the license text (pause to catch my breath) would be necessary to treat as %license. %doc should be sufficient there.
That said, if you end up in a situation where you (the packager) feels strongly that the upstream separation of copyright holders and license text would somehow cause the license text to be incomplete, feel free to either bring those specifics to this email list, or tag them both as %license and explain it in a comment in the spec file.
~tom
== Red Hat
Tom Callaway wrote:
I don't foresee any situation in which a file containing a list of copyright holders that is distinct and separate from the file containing the license text (pause to catch my breath) would be necessary to treat as %license. %doc should be sufficient there.
That said, if you end up in a situation where you (the packager) feels strongly that the upstream separation of copyright holders and license text would somehow cause the license text to be incomplete, feel free to either bring those specifics to this email list, or tag them both as %license and explain it in a comment in the spec file.
Thanks, that answers my second question. Then I'll continue including lists of authors in the same subpackage as the license, but with %doc, unless I come across some really special case.
Björn Persson
packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
-
Björn Persson -
Matthew Miller -
Tom Callaway