On the current upstream:
-----
$ licenserecon
fi: Versions: licenserecon '16.0'  licensecheck '3.3.9-1'

Parsing Source Tree  ....
Reading d/copyright  ....
Running licensecheck ....

No significant differences found
-----

On the upcoming upstream:

-----
$ licenserecon
fi: Versions: licenserecon '16.0'  licensecheck '3.3.9-1'

Parsing Source Tree  ....
Reading d/copyright  ....
** Superfluous file pattern configure
** Superfluous file pattern ltmain.sh
** Superfluous file pattern m4/libtool.m4
** Superfluous file pattern src/ntpctl.8
Running licensecheck ....

d/copyright      | licensecheck

FSFULLR          | FSFAP             m4/ax_add_fortify_source.m4
FSFULLR          | FSFAP             m4/ax_check_compile_flag.m4
FSFULLR          | ISC               m4/check-libc-compat.m4
FSFULLR          | ISC               m4/check-os-options.m4
FSFULLR          | ISC               m4/disable-compiler-warnings.m4
-----

Those are all files whose license changes according to which variant (BSD, GNU, etc.) of autoconf/libtool/m4, etc. upstream used to produce a new release. As such, IMHO, there is zero point in updating d/copyright at every release just to match changes in license for such auto-generated files, let alone to report any discrepancy as an error. They should therefore be ignored by licensereconf and licensecheck.

Martin-Éric

On 10/05/2026 08:27, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:

<snip>

No. They should not be ignored.
See the Debian Policy manual sections on d/copyright

Also, see the discussion on (duplicate) bug
https://bugs.debian.org/1099786

Peter

P.S.

If Debian Policy changes, I can then exclude these files,
(which was the case in versions of licenserecon up to 3.6)

Regards,
Peter