DFSG NEW Queue

DFSG, Licensing & New Packages Team

Review: tree-sitter 0.26.8-2

New Package Report

.changes
DateMon, 11 May 2026 08:12:18 -0400
Sourcetree-sitter
Version0.26.8-2
Changed-ByJames McCoy
Architectureamd64 source
Distributionexperimental
Changelog
tree-sitter (0.26.8-2) experimental; urgency=medium
 .
   * d/copyright: Add Amaan Qureshi as Copyright holder for main tree-sitter source
   * d/copyright: Add comment explaining change of ICU license
   * d/copyright: Add stanza for lib/src/portable/endian.h
.dsc
Sectionrust
Priorityoptional
Componentmain
Package-Listlibrust-tree-sitter-cli-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-config-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-generate-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-highlight-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-language-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-loader-dev deb rust optional arch=any
librust-tree-sitter-tags-dev deb rust optional arch=any
libtree-sitter-dev deb libdevel optional arch=any
libtree-sitter0.26 deb libs optional arch=any
tree-sitter-cli deb devel optional arch=any
debian/copyright
Format: https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
Upstream-Name: tree-sitter
Source: https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/

Files: *
Copyright:
 2018-2026 Max Brunsfeld <maxbrunsfeld@gmail.com>
 2023-2026 Amaan Qureshi <amaanq12@gmail.com>
License: Expat

Files: debian/*
Copyright:
 2020-2026 James McCoy <jamessan@debian.org>
License: Expat

Files: lib/src/unicode/*
Copyright:
 1991-2019 Unicode, Inc.
 1999-2015, International Business Machines
License: Unicode
Comment:
 The license was changed to Unicode with the release of ICU 58 in 2016. The
 LICENSE file still documents the prior license.

Files:
 lib/src/portable/endian.h
Copyright:
 Mathias Panzenböck
License: public-domain

License: Expat
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
 of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
 in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
 to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
 copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
 furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 .
 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
 copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 .
 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
 AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
 LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
 OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
 SOFTWARE.

License: Unicode
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
 a copy of the Unicode data files and any associated documentation
 (the "Data Files") or Unicode software and any associated documentation
 (the "Software") to deal in the Data Files or Software
 without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
 copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of
 the Data Files or Software, and to permit persons to whom the Data Files
 or Software are furnished to do so, provided that either
 (a) this copyright and permission notice appear with all copies
 of the Data Files or Software, or
 (b) this copyright and permission notice appear in associated
 Documentation.
 .
 THE DATA FILES AND SOFTWARE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
 ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
 NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.
 IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR HOLDERS INCLUDED IN THIS
 NOTICE BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, OR ANY SPECIAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL
 DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE,
 DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER
 TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
 PERFORMANCE OF THE DATA FILES OR SOFTWARE.
 .
 Except as contained in this notice, the name of a copyright holder
 shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale,
 use or other dealings in these Data Files or Software without prior
 written authorization of the copyright holder.

License: public-domain
 I, Mathias Panzenböck, place this file hereby into the public domain. Use it
 at your own risk for whatever you like. In case there are jurisdictions that
 don't support putting things in the public domain you can also consider it to
 be "dual licensed" under the BSD, MIT and Apache licenses, if you want to.
 This code is trivial anyway. Consider it an example on how to get the endian
 conversion functions on different platforms.

Review Information

rejected — allocated to siretart 13 days ago, started 13 days ago, completed 13 days ago.

Final Comment

Thank you for the updates regarding Mathias Panzenböck and Amaan Qureshi. I have
reviewed the feedback regarding the ICU subset licensing and the 2016 re-licensing
event.

I recognize that as a maintainer, you are correctly following upstream's lead and
should not be expected to modify upstream source code or headers to satisfy
archival preferences. However, debian/copyright must serve as a complete and
transparent documentation of the source tree as-is.

While the 2016 re-licensing by IBM under Unicode terms is the clear legal intent,
the headers in lib/src/unicode/ (umachine.h, utf16.h, utf8.h) still carry
historical IBM copyright notices and your bundled LICENSE file preserves the
IBM/ICU license in Section 1.

To satisfy the "document what you find" principle of DFSG reviews without
modifying upstream code, please update debian/copyright as follows:

  1. Add a standalone 'License: ICU' stanza containing the text of the IBM/ICU
    License (Section 1 of your bundled LICENSE file).
  2. Update the 'Files: lib/src/unicode/*' stanza to explicitly clarify the
    situation. A comment such as "In 2016, IBM re-licensed the ICU codebase to
    the Unicode Consortium. While headers still carry historical IBM notices
    referenced by the ICU License (v1.8.1-57.1), the new terms (Unicode-DFS-2016)
    are now in effect for the entire subset" is encouraged.

This approach provides full traceability for the IBM-copyrighted files and
aligns with the documentation style of the main 'icu' package in Debian,
without requiring any changes to the upstream source code.

Other Reviews of this Package

VersionHashAllocatedCompletedReviewerStatusDetails
0.26.8-3 11ecc6fc… 2026-05-12 13:16 2026-05-12 13:27 siretart accepted VIEW
0.26.8-1 3dfae908… 2026-05-07 00:08 2026-05-07 09:46 siretart rejected VIEW

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