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DFSG, Licensing & New Packages Team

Review: copyright-audit 0.0+git20260513.5255970-1

Package Information

DescriptionCopyright file generator, validator, and reviewer

A Debian debian/copyright file generator, validator, and reviewer. Scans source trees using ScanCode Toolkit or licensecheck

MaintainerMechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org>
Changed ByMechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org>
Sponsormechtilde@debian.org
Distributionunstable
Architectureall
VCSgit: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/copyright-audit.git (browse)
Closes#1152707
Trackerhttps://tracker.debian.org/pkg/copyright-audit
Uploaded6 days ago

New Package Report

.changes◂
Version0.0+git20260513.5255970-1
Changed-ByMechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org>
Architecturesource all
Distributionunstable
DateSun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:22 +0100
Sourcecopyright-audit
Changelog◂
copyright-audit (0.0+git20260513.5255970-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Initial release
     (Closes: #1152707)
.dsc◂
Sectionmisc
Priorityoptional
Componentmain
Package-Listcopyright-audit deb misc optional arch=all
debian/copyright◂
Format: https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
Source: https://github.com/eeickmeyer/copyright-audit
Upstream-Name: copyright-audit
Upstream-Contact: Erich Eickmeyer

Files: *
Copyright: 2026, Erich Eickmeyer
License: GPL-3+

Files: debian/*
Copyright: 2026, Mechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org>
License: GPL-3+

Files: debian/copyright-audit.1
Copyright: 2026, Erich Eickmeyer
           2026, Mechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org>
License: GPL-3+
Comment: This file was generated with help2man from copyright-audit --help 

License: GPL-3+
 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 the Free Software Foundation; version 3 dated June, 2007, or (at
 your option) any later version.
 On Debian systems, the complete text of version 3 of the GNU General
 Public License can be found in '/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-3'.

DFSG Assistant LLM REVIEW 0 blocker, 1 important, 0 minor

This is an LLM based review using a Debian Inference based workflow. It was not written by a member of the DFSG team and has not been checked by one. It is not a decision on the package: it may be wrong, and it may have missed things.

Reviewed 6 days ago.

Report◂

DFSG NEW review for copyright-audit version 0.0+git20260513.5255970-1

Summary

  • Licensing is DFSG-compliant and debian/copyright is accurate: Yes
  • Packaging is of good quality: Yes
  • Issues: 0 blocker, 1 important, 0 minor
  • debian/watch: version 5
  • debian/copyright: machine-readable
  • Scan before the review: 4 found

Licensing

debian/copyright is DEP-5 with the exact copyright-format 1.0 Format URL. Every upstream file is GPL-3-or-later: the script's header (copyright-audit:4-17) grants 'either version 3 ... or (at your option) any later version', README.md:94 says 'GNU General Public License v3.0 or later', snap/snapcraft.yaml:19 says GPL-3.0+, and LICENSE is the GPL-3 text. Files: * names Erich Eickmeyer with GPL-3+; debian/* names Mechtilde Stehmann and the help2man-generated man page gets its own later stanza naming both, so last-match-wins ordering is correct. The GPL-3 text is pointed at /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-3, which is allowed. The whole tree is a handful of text files with no vendored code, no build products, and no other licence or holder; the pre-scan hits are the tool's own tables of licence names it detects, not grants.

Packaging

Single arch:all binary at debhelper compat 14 with Standard-Version 4.7.4 (current), debian/rules a plain dh sequencer with no patches, and the script plus man page installed by debian/copyright-audit.install and .manpages. Dependencies match the code: python3 for the embedded Python (stdlib only: copyright-audit:363-368) and licensecheck for the scanner fallback (copyright-audit:166-180), with decopy in Recommends for the generate path. Vcs-Git/Vcs-Browser, Homepage and debian/upstream/metadata are present, the changelog has a sane version scheme, unstable target and bug closure, and no maintainer scripts are needed. No autopkgtest was written, which is optional and the only thing a sponsor might ask for.

Issues

important packaging 1. uscan found no upstream version ◂
  • Files: debian/watch
  • Basis: found by the review tooling's own checks
  • Problem: uscan ran without an error but found no upstream release with debian/watch.
  • Fix: Correct debian/watch so that uscan --report finds the upstream releases.
Verified ◂
  • Tree read in full: .gitignore, CHANGELOG.md, CODE_OUTLINE.md, LICENSE, README.md, copyright-audit (8315 lines, header and behaviour-relevant sections), snap/snapcraft.yaml, and all of debian/ (changelog, control, copyright, rules, copyright-audit.install, copyright-audit.manpages, copyright-audit.1, dpb.conf, salsa-ci.yml, source/format, upstream/metadata).
  • copyright-audit:3320-3321 and CHANGELOG.md:405 (SSPL/BUSL/Elastic/JSON/CC-NC/CC-ND): these are the tool's _NONFREE_RAW list and changelog entry naming licences it flags as non-free for other packages; no such licence is granted to or applied to this package, which is GPL-3+.
  • copyright-audit:791 (cc-by-nc mappings): part of the SPDX_TO_DEP5 mapping table used to normalise scanner output for other packages' copyright files; it is data, not a licence of this work.
  • copyright-audit:1558 ('Copyright 2024 Some Author'): a code comment inside the XMP enrichment block explaining the regex that strips a leading year/'Copyright' from dc:rights text; not a copyright holder, so debian/copyright need not name it.
  • LICENSE is the verbatim GPL-3 text (Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation); licensing it under the project's Files: * stanza is the usual treatment and not an inaccuracy a sponsor would act on.
  • No third-party or vendored code: the only embedded strings from other projects are licence texts in _BUILTIN_LICENSE_TEXTS (Unsplash) and the DEP-5 boilerplate/_PREAMBLE_MAP functions, used to emit copyright blocks for the trees the tool audits; no code is incorporated and nothing in the package is licensed under them.
  • No binary, generated or minified files anywhere in the tree, so nothing lacks its preferred form for modification; the man page in debian/ is generated from the script's own --help output, which is shipped at copyright-audit:2-52.
  • Only holders are Erich Eickmeyer (upstream) and Mechtilde Stehmann (Debian packaging), both named in debian/copyright with the man page's joint attribution handled by its own stanza.
  • apt-cache: licensecheck 3.3.9-1 and decopy 0.3.5-1 exist in the archive; licensecheck(1) documents --[no-]deb-machine (since v3.0.0) and -r/--recursive, which are the options copyright-audit:274,296 pass, so the declared dependency supports the invocation.
  • policy tool: the Policy manual on the reviewing system is 4.7.4 (upgrading checklist A10.2 is 4.7.4), so Standards-Version: 4.7.4 is current.
  • debhelper 14.5: dh_installman still reads debian/copyright-audit.manpages and falls back to debian/tmp at compat 11+, and dh_missing exits early when debian/tmp does not exist, as here where nothing is staged, so the uninstalled README/CHANGELOG/LICENSE do not fail the build.
  • Every pointer of debian/copyright to /usr/share/common-licenses names a file that is there (GPL-3).
Not confirmed ◂
  • File modes could not be inspected with the read-only tools available; if copyright-audit is not executable in the tarball, debian/copyright-audit.install would put a non-executable /usr/bin/copyright-audit in the package.
  • Nothing was built or run, so the script's runtime behaviour against licensecheck 3.3.9's --deb-machine output and decopy's options was not exercised.
  • Why the model asked for what a review has no use for. During this review it asked once for something outside the package and the reviewing system (another file of the sandbox, or a URL), or was given part of the review tooling's own configuration, and that was refused or withheld. A model does this when something it has read tells it to, so look in the package for text addressed to a reviewing program, and treat this report with suspicion. Refused: read: "xd://policy?document=copyright-format&section=6.9" is not a file of the package or of the reviewing system.
Proposed changes ◂

None.

Uploader's response to the LLM review

there is no release or tags at
https://github.com/eeickmeyer/copyright-audit/tags

so please can you accept this package. It can be useful to get proper files
of debian/copyright

Thanks

— Mechtilde Stehmann (mechtilde), 6 days ago

Review Information

accepted — allocated to awm 5 days ago, started 5 days ago, completed 5 days ago.

Final Comment

Other Reviews of this Package

VersionHashAllocatedCompletedReviewerStatusDetails
0.0+git20260513.5255970-1 e53b583b… 2026-10-31 21:59 2026-10-31 21:59 dfsg-uploader rejected VIEW

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