Portage should detect installed LICENSE/COPYING files and bail out if file like LICENSE or COPYING is found anywhere in the ED. Possibly it should even die not just warn, but QA warning for starters is enough.
and if we aren't already, have repoman warn when those files are listed in dodoc and DOCS ...
(In reply to comment #0) > Portage should detect installed LICENSE/COPYING files and bail out if file > like LICENSE or COPYING is found anywhere in the ED. > > Possibly it should even die not just warn, but QA warning for starters is > enough. There are programs that expect COPYING in specific places. For example, Emacs has a command describe-copying (C-h C-c), and it's not worthwhile to maintain a patch only to suppress one small file.
(In reply to comment #2) > There are programs that expect COPYING in specific places. For example, Emacs > has a command describe-copying (C-h C-c), and it's not worthwhile to maintain a > patch only to suppress one small file. Well then at least warning... :) Some auto information as I myself might not notice it on huge packages.
No progress since 10 years (and the idea makes no sense, see comment #2). Can we close this please?
(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #4) > No progress since 10 years (and the idea makes no sense, see comment #2). > Can we close this please? No, it makes sense, we'll just make it a warning and add a possible opt-out.
(In reply to Sam James from comment #5) > No, it makes sense, we'll just make it a warning and add a possible opt-out. See comment #2, checking whole ${ED} makes no sense. There are programs that want to read COPYING from a specific location. There are also copies of GPL and FDL embedded in GNU Info files. Not sure how we would even detect these. We could add a warning if a license file is found in /usr/share/doc/${PF}/. Then again, there are packages installing a LICEN[CS]E or README file there which describes licensing of the package and its files, without actually including any license text.
(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #6) > (In reply to Sam James from comment #5) > > No, it makes sense, we'll just make it a warning and add a possible opt-out. > > See comment #2, checking whole ${ED} makes no sense. There are programs that > want to read COPYING from a specific location. There are also copies of GPL > and FDL embedded in GNU Info files. Not sure how we would even detect these. Agreed, beyond scope of an automated tool for now. > > We could add a warning if a license file is found in /usr/share/doc/${PF}/. > Then again, there are packages installing a LICEN[CS]E or README file there > which describes licensing of the package and its files, without actually > including any license text. Sorry, I figured it was obvious we'd just check that specific directory. Agreed this is the right course. Let's fix the bug.
