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Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference

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  Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Bastian Germann <bage@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 14:30 +0100
    Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 14:50 +0100
      Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 14:50 +0100
        Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 15:20 +0100
          Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 15:50 +0100
            Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2025-11-18 16:40 +0100
              Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 17:20 +0100
    Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> - 2025-11-18 14:50 +0100
    Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> - 2025-11-18 15:10 +0100

#1270665 — Bug#1120935: debian-policy: Remove /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD reference

Package: debian-policy
Severity: normal

Footnote [9] in chapter 12 says:

"""
The University of California BSD license is also included in base-files as
/usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, but given the brevity of this license, its
specificity to code whose copyright is held by the Regents of the University
of California, and the frequency of minor wording changes, its text should
be included in the copyright file rather than referencing this file.
"""

Currently, there is only one package left referencing this file: #1105873.
Please remove this part of the footnote so the file can finally be removed.

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#1270667

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 02:25:02PM +0100, Bastian Germann wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Severity: normal
> 
> Footnote [9] in chapter 12 says:
> 
> """
> The University of California BSD license is also included in base-files as
> /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, but given the brevity of this license, its
> specificity to code whose copyright is held by the Regents of the University
> of California, and the frequency of minor wording changes, its text should
> be included in the copyright file rather than referencing this file.
> """
> 
> Currently, there is only one package left referencing this file: #1105873.
> Please remove this part of the footnote so the file can finally be removed.

Hello. Would it make sense to change that to a "must" as an intermediate step?

Thanks.

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#1270669

For the record, I found three more occurrences:

https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=the+complete+text+of+the+BSD+License+can+be+found

Sean Whitton wrote:
> How about we remove the file from base-files first and then edit Policy?

This is why I suggest changing it to a "must" first.

Thanks.

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#1270676

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 02:48:09PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> For the record, I found three more occurrences:
> 
> https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=the+complete+text+of+the+BSD+License+can+be+found

Sorry, this should have been s/three more/three/.

One of them was actually the one it python-aafigure.

(Moreover, the one in php-text-figlet says BSD but then references the
GPL-1, which is really weird).

Thanks.

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#1270681

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 03:18:15PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 02:48:09PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > For the record, I found three more occurrences:
> > 
> > https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=the+complete+text+of+the+BSD+License+can+be+found

One already reported and the other two were false positives (now reported
as #1120938 and #1120939).

So, yes, there was only one occurrence, sorry for the noise.

Thanks.

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#1270684

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hello,

On Tue 18 Nov 2025 at 03:43pm +01, Santiago Vila wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 03:18:15PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 02:48:09PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
>> > For the record, I found three more occurrences:
>> >
>> > https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=the+complete+text+of+the+BSD+License+can+be+found
>
> One already reported and the other two were false positives (now reported
> as #1120938 and #1120939).
>
> So, yes, there was only one occurrence, sorry for the noise.

No problem.

We could put a "must" in Policy but it doesn't seem like it would
achieve much.  Once the file is gone from common-licenses (which seems
imminent) then it would obviously be a bug to refer to it.

-- 
Sean Whitton

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#1270688

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 03:29:01PM +0000, Sean Whitton wrote:

> > So, yes, there was only one occurrence, sorry for the noise.
> 
> No problem.
> 
> We could put a "must" in Policy but it doesn't seem like it would
> achieve much.

Well, I think some historical perspective would be nice. It would be
more clear for people to see a must in policy than trying to guess
"what happened with this BSD thing which I read in policy and has
disappeared misteriously", that would force people to dive into the
git repository. I, for example, was not aware that this deprecation
was near complete (kudos to Bastian).

> Once the file is gone from common-licenses (which seems
> imminent) then it would obviously be a bug to refer to it.

Well, but deliberately breaking things is not my preferred way to do
transitions. After I wrote the above I discovered more occurrences:

https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=%2Fusr%2Fshare%2Fcommon-licenses%2FBSD&literal=1

Naturally, references in debian/changelog do not count, but there are
still quite a bunch of manpages referencing the BSD file.

Ideally, I'd like to see those reported as "important" before they are
serious, because switching from "not reported at all" to serious seems
a little bit harsh to me, even if this has been policy for a long time
now.

To comply with DFSG, I'd like to drop BSD from base-files only when
all packages stop referencing the file (in d/copyright and similar
places).

Thanks.

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#1270668

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Hello,

On Tue 18 Nov 2025 at 02:25pm +01, Bastian Germann wrote:

> Package: debian-policy
> Severity: normal
>
> Footnote [9] in chapter 12 says:
>
> """
> The University of California BSD license is also included in base-files as
> /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, but given the brevity of this license, its
> specificity to code whose copyright is held by the Regents of the University
> of California, and the frequency of minor wording changes, its text should
> be included in the copyright file rather than referencing this file.
> """
>
> Currently, there is only one package left referencing this file: #1105873.
> Please remove this part of the footnote so the file can finally be removed.

How about we remove the file from base-files first and then edit Policy?

-- 
Sean Whitton

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#1270671

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 02:25:02PM +0100, Bastian Germann wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Severity: normal
> 
> Footnote [9] in chapter 12 says:
> 
> """
> The University of California BSD license is also included in base-files as
> /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, but given the brevity of this license, its
> specificity to code whose copyright is held by the Regents of the University
> of California, and the frequency of minor wording changes, its text should
> be included in the copyright file rather than referencing this file.
> """

I would change that to this:

Until Debian 13, the University of California BSD license was also
included in base-files as /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, but given
the brevity of this license, its specificity to code whose copyright
is held by the Regents of the University of California, and the
frequency of minor wording changes, its text must now be included in
the copyright file rather than referencing the old file.

Then we can report remaining bugs as serious, and I will be happy to
add "remove BSD" to my base-files todo list for forky (but preferably
when all packages have been fixed).

Thanks.

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