Re: Guidance Needed on Licensing for a Debian Package

Francesco Poli <[email protected]> Mon, 3 Mar 2025 16:35:47 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.legal
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Mon, 3 Mar 2025 15:22:40 +0100 (CET) Raul G wrote:

[...]
> Hello,

Hello!

> 
> Thank you very much for your guidance. I have drafted the debian/copyright file, using the libreoffice package as a reference.
[...]

Wait, taking a look at the debian/copyright file of other packages is
OK, if you need to see concrete examples, but I think it's even more
important to understand the purpose of the debian/copyright file in a
Debian package and the (recommended) format.

Hence, I would encourage you to study the [relevant] [sections] of the
Debian Policy and the [specification] of the machine-readable format,
if you haven't yet done so.

[relevant]: <https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#copyright-considerations>
[sections]: <https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile>
[specification]: <https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/>

The debian/copyright file must be consistent with the licensing status
of the Debian package that you are creating!
The one provided by Yadd was clearly a generic example, not a draft of
what you should prepare for your package.

I should also mention that there are tools that (partially) automate
the writing of the debian/copyright file in the machine-readable
format.
One such tool is 'decopy', for instance.

I hope this helps.
Bye!

-- 
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 There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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