Ubuntu Manpage: license-reconcile - reconcile debian/copyright against source

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".

   --no-format-spec
       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.