[Pkg-doc-linux-devel] Checking licenses

[doug jensen]

On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 11:51:48PM +0100, Frank Lichtenheld wrote:
> Something like this would be far more preferable. If we find such an
> index that is maintained good, we ideally just have to check the
> <rights> tag (or something similar). Perhaphs we just end maintaining
> it ourselves ;)

That would be nice, but do you think the <rights> tag as they are currently
using it is DFSG specific?  Do you think we could convice them that the
tag or a similar tag should be DFSG specific?  I agree that this would
be an ideal solution.

> The problem is not the maintainance (There are about 10-20 HOWTO updates
> in a month, even manually checking them is a task for half an hour or so)
> but the work you have to do on the beginning for all the existing
> HOWTOs.

The script I have does work, in that, it spits out a diff at the end
showing the licensing lines that have changed, the code just needs to be
de-uglified.

> If you want to work on this start with a script that extracts the
> tarball with the text HOWTOs, gets a list of updated ones
> (debian/diff-tarballs, *hint, hint* ;) and outputs the license we
> currently assume for them (by searching in debian/copyrights).
> This should not be to complicated at all.

The starting point is indeed diff-tarballs :), although it maybe should use
the _old-howtos new-howtos_ files in the debian directory instead.  Umm...,
the copyrights files show the text of the base licenses that are used,
but wouldn't show if the text of the license statements within the
document had changed, right?  Anyway that's why I opted for the file
with the grep-able lines, so the exact text could be checked.

If we did decide to go with the grep-able file, I don't mind building
it.  On the other hand, Frank, you seem to be the one doing most of the
new package releases, so if it doesn't seem worthwhile to you, then I'm
happy with that :).

And if you prefer, to check out the <rights> tag option or even to
leave things the way they are, that's ok with me too.


--
Doug Jensen