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Bug#883950: [INPUT REQUIRED] Re: Bug#883950: debian-policy: allow specifying common licenses with only the identifier

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Dear FTP team,

the Policy editors request your attention and a decision regarding
Debian bug #883950: debian-policy: allow specifying common licenses with
only the identifier.

Summary of the proposal
=======================

Situation
=========

Debian Policy 12.5 "Copyright information" declares that:

"Packages distributed under the Apache license (version 2.0), the
Artistic license, the Creative Commons CC0-1.0 license, the GNU GPL
(versions 1, 2, or 3), the GNU LGPL (versions 2, 2.1, or 3), the GNU FDL
(versions 1.2 or 1.3), and the Mozilla Public License (version 1.1 or
2.0) should refer to the corresponding files under
/usr/share/common-licenses, [9] rather than quoting them in the
copyright file."

It is common practice to document copyright notices in debian/copyright
in the following form when using copyright format 1.0.

Files: foo.bar
Copyright: 2017, Smith <foo@example.com>
License: GPL-2+

License: GPL-2+
 On Debian systems the full license text of the GNU General Public
 License 2 can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2

Proposal
========

Allow the use of the short-license identifier only in the form:

Files: foo.bar
Copyright: 2017, Smith <foo@example.com>
License: [GPL-2+]

without the extra standalone paragraph which will mean exactly the same as

License: GPL-2+
 On Debian systems the full license text of the GNU General Public
 License 2 can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2

in the future.

Similar for other licenses under /usr/share/common-licenses.

License: [GPL-2]
License: [GPL-3+]
License: [Apache-2.0]
License: [LGPL-2+]

etc.

To clarify the meaning of this new short-license identifier, we intend
to document it in a modified version of copyright format 1.0 which will
be (most likely) released as copyright format 1.1. Especially the
meaning of the + sign will be clarified. To ensure that every Debian
user will have access to this documentation, copyright format 1.1 will
be installed onto all Debian systems locally.

The Format header would be changed to (location not final)

Format: /usr/share/common-licenses/copyright-format/1.1

The intention is to reduce unnecessary boilerplate in debian/copyright
by referencing licenses on the local system and thus saving developer
time and also improving readability.

Please report back to #883950, if you think this is an adequate proposal.

Regards,

Markus

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Bug#883950: [INPUT REQUIRED] Re: Bug#883950: debian-policy: allow specifying common licenses with only the identifier Markus Koschany <apo@debian.org> - 2017-12-28 21:00 +0100
  Bug#883950: [INPUT REQUIRED] Re: Bug#883950: debian-policy: allow specifying common licenses with only the identifier Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org> - 2017-12-28 22:40 +0100
  Bug#883950: Next steps on "[GPL-3+]" proposal Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2017-12-29 10:30 +0100
    Bug#883950: Next steps on "[GPL-3+]" proposal Stuart Prescott <stuart@debian.org> - 2017-12-30 04:00 +0100
      Bug#883950: Next steps on "[GPL-3+]" proposal Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2017-12-30 04:40 +0100
        Bug#883950: Next steps on "[GPL-3+]" proposal Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2017-12-30 15:30 +0100
      Bug#883950: Next steps on "[GPL-3+]" proposal Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2017-12-30 15:30 +0100

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