NAME¶
license-reconcile - reconcile debian/copyright against source
SYNOPSIS¶
license-reconcile --help|
--man
license-reconcile [
--copyright-file=file]
[
--no-check-copyright] [
--no-format-spec] [
--quiet]
[
--display-mapping] [
--directory=directory]
[
--filters= module1 module2 ...]
[
--config-file=file] [
--changelog-file=file]
DESCRIPTION¶
license-reconcile attempts to match license and copyright information in
a directory with the information available in "debian/copyright". It
gets most of its data from "licensecheck" so should produce
something worth looking at out of the box. However for a given package it can
be configured to succeed in a known good state, so that if on subsequent
upstream updates it fails, it points out what needs looking at. By default the
tests run are as follows:
- - Does the copyright file have an approved format specification as its
first line?
- - Can the copyright file be parsed?
- - Does every file in the source match at least one clause in the copyright
file?
- - Can every file, license and copyright datum extracted from the source be
contained in the corresponding matching paragraph from the copyright file?
The data for this comparison comes from a number filter objects. See
"Filters" for more information.
- - Is every file in the source assigned copyright and a license by some
part of the "debian/copyright" file.
GETTING STARTED¶
out of the box¶
From the top level of the source directory of Debian packaged software, just run
"license-reconcile".
setting a config file¶
Normally to make any progress it will be necessary to have a config file. The
default file is "debian/license-reconcile.yml". A different config
file can be set with the
--config-file=file. The config file is
interpreted using Config::Any but for the purposes of this documentation# we
assume the format is YAML.
overriding incorrect results¶
Suppose you are really lucky. For just one file, "a/b", the default
filters which are wrappers around "licensecheck", have got it wrong.
They have for some reason decided that the file has a GPL-3 license, when
inspection shows it is in the public domain. This is causing a false positive
break against your carefully crafted "debian/copyright" file. You
can fix this with the following config fragment:
Rules:
rules:
-
Glob: a/b
License: public-domain
Copyright: 1556, Nostrodamus
See Debian::LicenseReconcile::Filter::Rules for more information on how to
configure this filter.
providing a catch all license and copyright¶
You can make the filters provide a default license, but providing a suitable
rule in the Default section of the config file:
Default:
rules:
-
License: All software is property of the proletariat license
Copyright: 1984, Ministry of Algorithms
The Default filter uses exactly the same code as the Rules filter, but by
default runs last. So it has all the same functionality but the lowest
precedence.
controlling the sequence of filters.¶
By default the filters run are: Rules, Std, Shebang, ChangeLog and Default. You
can vary the filters using the
--filters=module option. Setting
"--filters Rules" would mean that only the
Debian::LicenseReconcile::Filter::Rules filter would be used. Once you specify
one filter you must specify them all.
filter aliasing¶
The Default filter is an alias for Rules. This means it runs the same code but
has a separate config. Default is defined as "Default~Rules". In
general "X~Y" means use the code from Y but get the config from X.
writing your own filter.¶
You can write your own filters by inheriting from
Debian::LicenseReconcile::Filter. You need to define the "get_info"
method.
OPTIONS¶
--copyright-file=file¶
Specify an alternative copyright file. Defaults to "debian/copyright".
Don't check the first line of the copyright file against permitted format
specifications.
--no-check-copyright¶
Don't check the copyright clauses.
--quiet¶
Don't give any explanations, simply a success or a fail via the exit status.
--display-mapping¶
Display mapping from the directory onto the copyright clauses.
--directory=directory¶
The directory whose copyright and licenses will be verified. This defaults to
".".
--filters=module1 --filters=module2 ....¶
A sequence of filters which will inspect the source package and return license
and copyright information. Each module name must sit below the
Debian::LicenseReconcile::Filter and inherit from it. The default value is
"Rules Std Shebang ChangeLog Default".
--config-file=file¶
A file used to provide filter specific configuration data. The file is read by
Config::Any and the relevant section is passed to each filter constructor via
the "config" parameter.
<--changelog-file=>file¶
The Debian changelog file which defaults to "debian/changelog". The
Rules filter uses this to get the current version and the ChangeLog filter
gets its data from it.
Filters¶
By default the filters are processed in the order below. Once a file has been
returned by a filter, subsequent filters will ignore it.
- - Rules
- - Std
- - Shebang
- - ChangeLog
- - Default
Each filter constructor will be passed the following parameters:
- - directory - the directory from which to find license and copyright
data.
- - files_remaining - an array ref of files which have not been
analyzed.
- - config - a data structure representing the portion of the config file
relevant to this filter.
- - changelog - a Parse::DebianChangelog object.
- - licensecheck - a Debian::LicenseReconcile::LicenseCheck object.
LIMITATIONS¶
The DEP-5 specification is subtly different from the file glob specification.
Since the File::FnMatch module is the only practical implementation there is
little that can be done. The consequence is that attempting to specify that a
file name should contain '[' and later a ']' in "debian/copyright"
is unlikely to work correctly.
In copyright parsing years cannot be expressed in an abbreviated two digit form.
This is probably a good thing, but it it will surely cause an issue at some
point.
AUTHOR¶
Nicholas Bamber, "<nicholas at periapt.co.uk>"
LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright 2012 Nicholas Bamber.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.
See
http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.