From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tassilo Horn Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Packages, release notes, etc Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 11:22:18 +0200 Message-ID: <87io7iochh.fsf@gnu.org> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1441877088 23742 80.91.229.3 (10 Sep 2015 09:24:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 09:24:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: Michael Welle Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 10 11:24:33 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZy5o-0002L2-Fo for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 11:24:32 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47911 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZy5n-0002I4-S1 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:24:31 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38938) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZy3l-0007fJ-HC for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:22:29 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZy3i-0006fZ-Ep for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:22:25 -0400 Original-Received: from out2-smtp.messagingengine.com ([66.111.4.26]:41951) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZy3i-0006eC-5E for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:22:22 -0400 Original-Received: from compute4.internal (compute4.nyi.internal [10.202.2.44]) by mailout.nyi.internal (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C64D20C4A for ; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:22:21 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from frontend1 ([10.202.2.160]) by compute4.internal (MEProxy); Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:22:21 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d= messagingengine.com; h=cc:content-transfer-encoding:content-type :date:from:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version:references :subject:to:x-sasl-enc:x-sasl-enc; s=smtpout; bh=jhnaC/rOlFfGwkR Kj8WWGOjw+Xk=; b=NIEhMXea0AsNOuJ1+Zt/yVDwKsjtKke+nqEU0A8bgeG+sQX PmEt0ePeJ3AQWHBBokQHczkVHX3GvyhrySvvH99h8NvCOyT03wD9IK/JUAFfDx4W VQAV8pqlIAnBIOyek+JtSbmCUwm+wVChoXJOFBiZajR8BYPGj/e4YVWpZHXg= X-Sasl-enc: UYfEIj5jlYIGUvM0a9Z5RzJo8kUjZnV7pA4nsNAT7fjJ 1441876941 Original-Received: from thinkpad-t440p (unknown [2.160.5.146]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 9D4DFC00286; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:22:20 -0400 (EDT) Mail-Followup-To: Michael Welle , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org In-Reply-To: (Michael Welle's message of "Thu, 10 Sep 2015 09:43:27 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.130014 (Ma Gnus v0.14) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 66.111.4.26 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:107114 Archived-At: Michael Welle writes: Hi Michael, > I have noticed that a lot of packages (at the least of the packages I > have installed) come without release notes, the explicit copyright > notice and all the other 'meta data'. Is there some kind of consensus > on how that should be handled or is it just the way it is? The documentation in (info "(elisp)Library Headers") suggests that each elisp file should have the following header: ,---- | ;;; foo.el --- Support for the Foo programming language |=20 | ;; Copyright (C) 2010-2015 Your Name |=20 | ;; Author: Your Name | ;; Maintainer: Someone Else | ;; Created: 14 Jul 2010 | ;; Keywords: languages | ;; Homepage: http://example.com/foo |=20 | ;; This file is not part of GNU Emacs. |=20 | ;; This file is free software=E2=80=A6 | =E2=80=A6 | ;; along with this file. If not, see . `---- So in general, metadata such as copyright notice, author, maintainer, and homepage should always be available no matter how a package is distributed, e.g., just from SCM, via tarballs, or via the emacs package manager. With respect to license, I think it is not even possible for an emacs package to have a license different than GPL version 3 or later. Each package is a combined work of emacs + X so the emacs license extends to the package. That's probably the reason why there's no special License field in the standard headers. Things like a ChangeLog or release notes are optional and up to the package maintainer. Some packages have them either in separate files, in their info documentation, or included as comment in the package's main file. I think that the above conventions are strictly enforced at least for all packages from the official GNU ELPA package archive but there might be packages from MELPA or Marmalade which are lacking this metadata. I'd report a lack of the standard headers as a bug to the bugtracker of the respective package. Bye, Tassilo