[Fedora-packaging] Including License doc in packages

Paul Howarth paul at city-fan.org
Thu Jun 29 07:49:45 UTC 2006


On Thu, 2006-06-29 at 08:43 +0100, Paul Howarth wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 23:13 +0100, Tim Jackson wrote:
> > There seems to be some confusion about including the license file in a 
> > package.  I have been told two more-or-less contradictory things in two 
> > very similar packages. Unfortunately I can't find the wiki citation 
> > about this right now, but...
> > 
> > 
> > php-pear-DB (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=176733):
> > 
> > "You do not have to bring in the license from an external source."
> > 
> > 
> > php-pear-PEAR-Command-Packaging 
> > (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=185423):
> > 
> > "SHOULD FIX: Include actual license in %doc"
> > 
> > 
> > OK, so they're not actually contradictory. But we really ought to have 
> > some consistency here. If the license file isn't distributed with the 
> > package, we should have a clear policy: either we pull it in from an 
> > external source (maybe if that's "reasonably" possible, i.e. it's 
> > distributed on a public URL as a standalone file), or we don't. 
> > Otherwise we just lengthen package reviews and cause the precious time 
> > of packagers to be wasted with repeated pointless discussions and 
> > re-spins of packages.
> > 
> > I really don't care what the policy is - I don't mind whether or not I 
> > have to pull external license files into my packages, I just think there 
> > should be an unambiguous policy so that I don't have to have this debate 
> > every time I do a package. Plus we have at least some consistency for users.
> 
> The policy is very clear IMHO:
> 
> http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/ReviewGuidelines
> 
>   MUST: If (and only if) the source package includes the text of
>         the license(s) in its own file, then that file, containing
>         the text of the license(s) for the package must be included
>         in %doc.

Forgot to add: there's also this:

    SHOULD: If the source package does not include license text(s) as
            a separate file from upstream, the packager SHOULD query
            upstream to include it.

So upstream should be requested to add the license text in their
distribution, but the package need not contain it until upstream does
this.

In the special case of the package maintainer being the same as
upstream, I think there is merit is pushing a bit harder for this.

Paul.




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