[REUSE] REUSE specification 3.0 – feedback phase

[Max Mehl]

Dear all,

We are happy to announce the first draft of the REUSE 3.0 specification!
REUSE 3.0 contains exciting improvements. We have solved a lot of issues
and edge cases, reduced complexity for developers, and increased
compatibility with other license compliance projects. We have also
worked on a tutorial and FAQ to make adoption of REUSE even easier.

Because of the new specification's extend and our aspiration to make
REUSE compatible to as many other license compliance efforts, we kindly
invite you to provide feedback. Please share your feedback via the REUSE
mailing list or directly create a Git issue *before 28 July 23:59 CEST*.

  - Specification, tutorial, and FAQ draft for REUSE 3.0:
    https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-docs/tree/v3.0a1

  - Changelog of specification and corresponding documents:
    https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-docs/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

  - Mailing list: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/reuse

  - Git issue tracker: https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-docs/issues


In addition to the linked changelog, you might be interested in the
rationales behind some decisions we have made:

- SPDX-Copyright: "SPDX-Copyright" is visually consistent with
  "SPDX-License-Identifier", which communicates to the reader that the
  two items belong together. As a slight added benefit, "SPDX-Copyright"
  is easier to parse.

- LICENSES/ directory: Having a license file in the root of the project
  is handy, but we believe it is more valuable to have all licenses in
  one place, so that there can be no confusion about the licenses used
  by a project. We are aware that this breaks the license
  detection/display in GitHub and other software forges, but we see no
  other way how to properly deal with multi-license projects. We will
  reach out to these parties in order to find a good solution.

- Recommendation on copyright format: This provides a simple
  recommendation that should be good for most people. We do not mandate
  anything other than that the copyright notice contain the name of the
  copyright holder

- Removed mention of VCS to track copyright: These recommendations were
  far too abstract, so they were simply scrapped.

- Removed mention of bill of materials: This is out-of-scope for the
  spec. However, the REUSE helper tool still supports the generation of
  such a document.


We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts before *28 July 23:59
CEST* so we can start incorporating them in the finalisation of the
specification soon. Thank you!

Best,
Max


P.S.: You might also be interested in the REUSE helper tool [^1] and its
Docker image in your CI processes [^2].

[^1]: https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-tool

[^2]: https://hub.docker.com/r/fsfe/reuse

-- 
Max Mehl - Programme Manager - Free Software Foundation Europe
Contact and information: https://fsfe.org/about/mehl | @mxmehl
Become a supporter of software freedom:  https://fsfe.org/join