ignoring autotool in debian/copyright?

IOhannes m zmoelnig zmoelnig at iem.at
Thu Dec 1 10:26:28 UTC 2011


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On 2011-11-30 04:16, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> You can (with your Debian hat on, I am not talking about upstream here) 
> repackage the source to *not* include the autogenerated files as part of 
> Debian distributed sources.  IF the files truly are only autogenerated 
> at the target build host you need not document it - but all that we ship 


mind that i "somewhat" agree with that (i call it "somewhat" because i
can see and appreciate the value of having everything in the source
package being documented, while at the same time i'm still lazy and
would happily not do it if this is not only tolerated by accepted
behaviour),

the reason why i started this discussion is not because i don't care
about licensing of those files; but that i think - as felipe has already
pointed out - that "properly" documenting those files as is currently
suggested only creates noise.

my reasoning is, that those generated (but copyrighted) files, are
virtually the same for all packages that use autotools.
assuming that about 40%  of all the C/C++ based debian packages use
autotools  (that is just a wild guess based on nothing but intuition)
this would eventually suggest that we add the very same information to
about 4000 packages or so (naively interpolating from debtags)

i thought that it might be helpful, if we shorten that information to
something like
<snip>
Files: libtool, config.sub, config.guess,...
License: autotools
  see /usr/share/doc/licenses/autotools
</snip>

i'm aware that it might not be that simple, as i haven't followed the
evaluation of the various licenses applied to autotools generated files.

> 
> If you are lazy and want least possible documentation of autotools, then 
> add a single Files section something like this:
> 
> Files: configure*
>  Makefile*
>  *m4*
>  config*
>  libtool*
> Copyright: 1992-2008, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> License: GPL-2+
> 
> Extend with "missing, depcomp, etc" and don't give a shit about 
> exceptions or more liberal licensing - just treat it all as being 
> contaminated with GPL-2+.

which is a similar suggestion as mine above.
however, i'm not so convinced about the "contaminated with GPL-2+" argument.


> I sure prefer if you are not lazy but instead respectful to those 
> developers that put effort into inventing and maintaining a tool that is 
> clearly good enough that you use it.

hmm, i don't think this is about not respecting the developers of those
great tools. even if i was "lazy and [...] treat it all as [...] GPL-2+"
there would be a copyright clause that acknowledges the work.

and with my debian hat on, it was not my decision to use those tools; i
only respect upstreams intention.

fmgasdr
IOhannes
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