[REUSE] REUSE.yaml

[Max Mehl]

~ Andreas Cord-Landwehr [2020-07-21 21:07 +0200]:
> Hi, I really like this idea! It would solve some use cases for me, where I was 
> waiting for a better solution than the individual file.license files (e.g. 
> folders with many icons, folders with test data). And I think that it is 
> important that the file is easy to see, meaning it is not a hidden file. Same 
> for the fact that it is easy to read by a human.

Thanks for the positive feedback, Andreas! 

> The only point I am a little bit undecided about is, if one should really 
> allow arbitrary regular expressions in the REUSE.yaml files, especially going 
> outside of the scope of the folder the file is stored in. This will make it 
> harder to detect issues with contradicting license statements. However, the 
> reuse lint tooling could be the answer for this.

Three thoughts on your concerns:

1. That feature is already available via the DEP5 file [^1], so
   basically nothing new. Does not directly solve your concern, but
   perhaps good to know for your current work already.
2. I forgot to mention that we would explicitly disallow defining files
   above the current level, so definitions like "../../otherdir" would
   not be possible. But yes, defining subdirectories
   (subdir/yetanother/src) would. This is because some users might want
   to have only one REUSE.yaml file in their root directory.
3. Good that you mention contradictions. We've thought about the
   question of precedence as well, especially if we'd adopt REUSE.yaml,
   and I will open a thread on this soon. I just wanted to give people
   here the chance to comment on REUSE.yaml before I take this into the
   precedence considerations.

Does this alleviate some of your concerns?

Additionally, on the tool side, we would of course make sure that the
specified precedence is respected. Also, we thought about a "convert"
subcommand that converts the DEP5 file to REUSE.yaml in order to make
migration to the new default as smooth as possible.

Best,
Max


[^1]: https://reuse.software/faq/#bulk-license

-- 
Max Mehl - Programme Manager - Free Software Foundation Europe
Contact and information: https://fsfe.org/about/mehl | @mxmehl
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