Hi,

as discussed on debian-devel [1] I would like to request that more DFSG
licenses are added to /usr/share/common-licenses and that package
maintainers are allowed to reference them.

License: EPL-1.0
Source: https://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
Example packages:
https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#Eclipse_Public_License_-_1.0

Regards,

Markus

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2017/12/msg00209.html

Markus Koschany wrote:

I'm ambivalent on this one.  No strong objection but it seems likely
that small installations could benefit from not having to have this
license text.

I'm wondering if we should split some common licenses out of
base-files to avoid this kind of dilemma.  E.g. if there were some
base-files-eclipse package that provided the EPL-1.0 and we allowed
packages to depend on base-files-eclipse to avoid having to ship the
EPL in their own copyright file, then this dilemma wouldn't exist.
The hypothetical base-files-eclipse package might need to be marked in
some appropriate way to simplify following the spirit of licenses
(just like people know to treat base-files specially and distribute
the license texts from it alongside Debian source packages they
distribute).

Thanks,
Jonathan

Am 13.12.2017 um 19:18 schrieb Jonathan Nieder:

This license is quite common in the Java ecosystem. I think it is worth
adding it because it is used by a significant number of packages

codesearch.debian.net search query: EPL path:debian/copyright

I would like to argue that disk space is no longer an issue in 2017 and
people with special needs (embedded systems) will most likely remove
/usr/share/common-licenses anyway. Thus the more DFSG-licenses we
install into /usr/share/common-licenses the more time can be saved for
more important issues than quoting licenses.

Regards,

Markus

Hi,

Markus Koschany wrote:
important than disk space these days.

I'm confused.  Can you explain your workflow a little more?

I wouldn't expect using upstream's LICENSE file to take significantly
more time than replacing it with a pointer to common-licenses.  I'd
actually expect it to take more time.

If all we care about is maintainer time spent, then we should
eliminate common-licenses.

Puzzled,
Jonathan

Am 13.12.2017 um 19:56 schrieb Jonathan Nieder:
for example. Both packages ship approximately a dozen different
licenses. I can't simply copy&paste the upstream license because I have
to format it to make it copyright format 1.0 compliant. As an
experienced packager I have already done this before and I can just copy
my previous work but imagine all the other (maybe new) Debian
contributors who are facing the same problem at the moment. They will
have to do the same thing over and over again. So the simplest solution
would be to bundle all DFSG-licenses in one place and to allow that
people can reference them like that

License: [EPL-1.0]

and then everyone knows that this file is licensed under the same
license located in /usr/share/common-licenses/EPL-1.0

Plain and simple. It's not a big deal if you can save 5 minutes for one
license. It's a big deal if all people can save this time. Just multiply
this with all affected packages. Please let us do more important work
for Debian than copy&pasting licenses.

Thanks

Markus

Hi again,

Markus Koschany wrote:

Aha, that explains it.

Policy does not require using copyright format 1.0, but many packagers
choose to use it.  It sounds like we need better tools to help them.

But with a goal in mind of saving maintainer time, shouldn't we
discourage using copyright format 1.0 when the upstream LICENSE file
is clear?  (I personally think the maintainer time involved is very
little relative to the work of either manually or using tools
verifying that the license is correctly documented --- e.g. comparing
source file headers to the LICENSE file.  I'm just going along with
the saving time argument.  I suspect the best way forward will be to
improve tools.)

Thanks,
Jonathan