Bug#476810: Please clarify 12.5, "Copyright information"
Russ Allbery writes:
> Matthias Klose <doko@cs.tu-berlin.de> writes:
>
> > Package: debian-policy
> > Version: 3.7.3.0
> >
> > 12.5 currently reads: "/usr/share/doc/package may be a symbolic link to
> > another directory in /usr/share/doc only if the two packages both come
> > from the same source and the first package Depends on the second. These
> > rules are important because copyrights must be extractable by mechanical
> > means."
> >
> > Proposing to clarify this to "... come from the same source and the
> > first package directly or indirectly depends on the second ...". For the
> > intention mentioned in the last sentence ("must be extractable by
> > mechanical means") it doesn't matter if the dependency is direct or
> > indirect. If there are other reasons for the stricter direct dependency,
> > please clarify this as "directly depends".
>
> I'm not sure that I see any need for a change here.
see http://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2008/04/msg00052.html
> - usr-share-doc-symlink-without-dependency
> is an explicit policy violation and not allowed.
and the followups.
> To resolve indirect
> dependencies requires more of the logic of a package manager and may
> require installing quite a large number of packages, whereas the current
> requirement only requires one level of dependency handling. Therefore,
> the current requirement does indeed make copyrights more extractable by
> mechanical means.
this still can be done.
> I'm also not sure what the motivation would be for relying on an indirect
> dependency. Doing so is generally strongly discouraged in Debian because
> it's inherently fragile; it's too easy to change the downstream package's
> dependencies without realizing the effect on upstream packages.
no, this is still for binaries built from the same source, you don't
need a package manager for this kind of dependency handling.
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