Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

Gullible Jones · 2009-03-20 21:48:44

Apparently, at least some software ships copyright notices in /usr/share/doc; and in some cases, the software must be shipped with those notices. Take for instance GIMP. On Arch there is no /usr/share/doc/gimp directory. On Debian there is /usr/share/doc/gimp, containing among other things the file "copyright", which says, among other things:

** Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
** documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
** provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
** both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
** supporting documentation.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it looks to me like it might be smart to stop stripping /usr/share/doc for at least some packages.

Allan · 2009-03-20 22:53:30

We no longer strip docs, so if the file is installed by "make install" it should be there.

Inxsible · 2009-03-20 23:00:31

I remember this being a huge issue on the Debian forums. I was using Arch and Debian at the time and many at the Debian forums thought it was a disgrace that Arch stripped documents and I have seen a bunch of threads there dissing Arch for it.

I agree...that the documents need to be there if the author has mentioned it as a legal clause. At the same time, Debian users - being a bit more towards the open source and FOSS as compared to Arch users - who are a bit more lenient at including closed source apps, thought that even the AUR should be the responsibility of the Arch devs. However I do not agree with that because a user can change the PKGBUILD and strip the documents if he/she wants anyway...so there is no guaranteed way of making sure of keeping the documents in there. They probably didn't understand AUR completely. They thought of it as a "repo" - like they have in Debian.

Gullible Jones · 2009-03-20 23:05:54

I'm not sure if the PKGBUILDs matter, but the main repos do, and I checked the GIMP package... No /usr/share/doc. If Arch no longer strips docs, then I'll file a bug report for GIMP.

Edit: xterm doesn't have /usr/share/doc either, and it's present in Debian. But the PKGBUILDs don't show anything about that directory. Are the devs still in the process of rebuilding packages that need to be un-stripped?

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2009-03-20 23:11:50)

Inxsible · 2009-03-20 23:28:29

Gullible Jones wrote:

I'm not sure if the PKGBUILDs matter, but the main repos do, and I checked the GIMP package... No /usr/share/doc. If Arch no longer strips docs, then I'll file a bug report for GIMP.
Edit: xterm doesn't have /usr/share/doc either, and it's present in Debian. But the PKGBUILDs don't show anything about that directory. Are the devs still in the process of rebuilding packages that need to be un-stripped?

Maybe Arch puts its docs in some other location. I dont know which, I dont have GIMP installed. but if there is no compulsion on where the doc needs to be, it could be in /usr/appName instead of /usr/share/docs or whatever. As long as its there, it should be fine.

dolby · 2009-03-21 00:10:19

See http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/12688 .
JGC's first reply might cover you. Judging from what he says copyright is a file Debian adds to each package.
Slackware has a /usr/doc for every app, by manually copying anything needed and not installed by default.

heres the gimp 2.6.6 part of the SlackBuild

mkdir -p $PKG/usr/doc/gimp-$VERSION
cp -a \
AUTHORS COPYING HACKING INSTALL LICENSE NEWS README* docs/Wilber* \
$PKG/usr/doc/gimp-$VERSION
( cd $PKG/usr/doc/gimp-$VERSION
for i in \
libgimp libgimpbase libgimpcolor libgimpconfig libgimpmath \
libgimpmodule libgimpthumb libgimpwidgets ; do \
ln -s /usr/share/gtk-doc/html/$i $i-html ;
done
)

Many apps dont install documentation stuff by default. Some might need an extra install-doc etc, but many just dont.
That doesnt mean the docs are not useful though.

Last edited by dolby (2009-03-21 00:34:28)

Shapeshifter · 2009-03-21 00:36:48

I think this is a more general issue as "docs" - other than the license - should be seperated completely from the software. No license agreement should force a distro to ship docs with an app.
Also, in that clause you pasted at the top, it says that the notice needs to "appear in supporting documentation". This doesn't mean that there has to be any supporting docuemtnation but that if there is any, it needs to be there.
But as I said, it's a general issue in my opinion.

Snowman · 2009-03-21 07:59:53

The docs for gimp are not stripped. They are installed in /usr/share/gtk-doc/html. If the Debian gimp package has files in /usr/share/doc/gimp, then it's because they patched it or manually installed them.

Probably Debian just placed a copy of the license there, like dolby said earlier. In Arch, these are in /usr/share/licenses.

Gullible Jones · 2009-03-21 16:11:06

Alright, thanks for clearing that one up...

Gullible Jones · 2009-03-21 18:55:09

Uh, hmm, licenses and copyright notices are apparently different. Debian puts licenses in /usr/share/common-licenses and copyright notices in /usr/share/doc/FOO. Arch puts the licenses in /usr/share/licenses, but where does it put the copyright notices?

Snowman · 2009-03-21 21:18:44

Gullible Jones wrote:

Uh, hmm, licenses and copyright notices are apparently different. Debian puts licenses in /usr/share/common-licenses and copyright notices in /usr/share/doc/FOO. Arch puts the licenses in /usr/share/licenses, but where does it put the copyright notices?

Unless I'm mistaken, they are usually in the same file. In the case of imagemagick, I placed them both in /usr/share/licenses as these things are related (ie, legal-related files).

EDIT: I'm not sure but I think Debian write these copyright files from scratch. So it might just be a distro policy.

dolby · 2009-03-21 22:18:19

Gullible Jones wrote:

Uh, hmm, licenses and copyright notices are apparently different. Debian puts licenses in /usr/share/common-licenses and copyright notices in /usr/share/doc/FOO. Arch puts the licenses in /usr/share/licenses, but where does it put the copyright notices?

JGC wrote:

Our policy for documentation is a bit weird at this moment. Take a look in /usr/share/doc -> you'll find directories named after the package name, directories with capitals in it, directories with versions, etc. Another thing is the name of the copyright file in /usr/share/licenses/$pkgname. If we want to change this, we should take some steps:...

Isnt that enough?
I suggest you contribute to the report, or open a new one if you want to investigate this further.
There is no reason for such issues to be discussed in the forum

fukawi2 · 2009-03-22 01:24:52

Shapeshifter wrote:

... it says that the notice needs to "appear in supporting documentation". This doesn't mean that there has to be any supporting docuemtnation but that if there is any, it needs to be there.

That's how I read it.

Gullible Jones · 2009-04-10 06:45:49

Umm... Sorry to resurrect this thread, but what's the deal with the sources for packages in the [community] repo? Wouldn't the GPL also require those to be hosted, or are they not covered?

Snowman · 2009-04-10 06:59:19

Gullible Jones wrote:

Umm... Sorry to resurrect this thread, but what's the deal with the sources for packages in the [community] repo? Wouldn't the GPL also require those to be hosted, or are they not covered?

They must and will be hosted. The script that syncs the sources on the server use svn because it was first made for the main repos. Once the community repo will be switched to svn, we'll add it to the list of repo to check.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-03-20 21:48:44

Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#2 2009-03-20 22:53:30

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#3 2009-03-20 23:00:31

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#4 2009-03-20 23:05:54

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#5 2009-03-20 23:28:29

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#6 2009-03-21 00:10:19

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#7 2009-03-21 00:36:48

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#8 2009-03-21 07:59:53

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#9 2009-03-21 16:11:06

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#10 2009-03-21 18:55:09

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#11 2009-03-21 21:18:44

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#12 2009-03-21 22:18:19

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#13 2009-03-22 01:24:52

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#14 2009-04-10 06:45:49

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

#15 2009-04-10 06:59:19

Re: Legality/respectfulness of stripping stuff in /usr/share/doc?

Board footer