Bug#1102363: licensecheck: source formats: support excluding formats e.g. to only check for SPDX fields

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting c.buhtz at posteo.jp (2025-04-08 13:36:54)
> Am 08.04.2025 12:44 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
> > I have reframed it as an option (rather than
> > a default goal):
> > 
> > support excluding formats e.g. to only check for SPDX fields
> > 
> > Do you agree that this covers the point of this issue?
> 
> Kind of. Yes. ;)
> 
> But I would still argument that it should be default behavior of 
> licensecheck, to not looking for other formats if SPDX is provided.
> Checking for SPDX and other formats at the same time/file would 
> contradict the goal of SPDX.
> 
> If authors using SPDX and extra license information on purpose they are 
> using SPDX the wrong way.
> 
> So doing it my way would be a more pedagogical and train/force the 
> authors to learn how to use SPDX the right way.

If(!) licensecheck had SPDX and REUSE as its ultimate goals (which is
plural: REUSE is only one use case of SPDX), then I might agree with
your reasoning.

Licensecheck has a wider aim than SPDX and REUSE, however, beginning
with the fact that Debian work on systematic license naming in [DEP5]
predates SPDX and they are still not fully aligned nor do they cover
the same needs: Where SPDX and REUSE are arguably mainly for _authors_
of code who know deterministically the facts about their own licensing,
Debian needs are mainly about _redistribution_ of code where facts are
sometimes quite fuzzy. Licensecheck is ideally usable both for
validating and for approximating a fuzzy reality, but emerged from the
needs of latter.

Please see bug#960695 about usage profiles.  Certainly sounds like you
are describing one such profile, and elaborating on that might be
helpful at that bugreport (rather than here).

 - Jonas

[DEP5]: https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep5/

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/
 * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 931 bytes
Desc: signature
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-perl-maintainers/attachments/20250408/014379b3/attachment.sig>