REUSE makes copyright and licensing easier than ever

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REUSE helps developers to declare copyright and licensing of their projects. Today, the REUSE project released version 3.0 of their specification. The new edition is accompanied by a helper tool and makes adopting the best practices easier than ever.

Read the complete article.

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Small point: “central DEP-5 configuration file” should be qualified by “Apple” or linked to or some such, because only those developing for macOS would know what this entity is (as I understand it).

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Hi Robbie. Not sure whether I understand you correctly. What’s the connection to Apple and macOS?

DEP-5 is the format used by Debian for their debian/copyright files. See in our FAQ and on debian.org for more information.

But yes, you are right in saying that DEP-5 is probably not a known term for most of our readers.

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@max.mehl My web search ended in the Apple Device Enrollment Program Guide, also abbreviated “DEP”. Evidently no end of opportunities for confusion!

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If a project has applied the REUSE specification version 2.0, does it need any change for the version 3.0? Is there a migration guide?

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Yes, there are some breaking changes, see our Changelog.

The complexity of the migration depends on the features you used before. The LICENSES directory is completely new (and we dropped the LICENSE file), and the location of the DEP-5 file changed (if you used it). Your headers might stay the same though. The reuse helper tool will assist you in confirming whether everything is alright.

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Thanks for the info. The instructions are now simpler, the tutorial is really easy to follow, and the reuse lint tool is of great help. Neat job, thanks a lot for your work!

As a side note when I’ve read the Changelog I’ve discovered the Keep a Changelog spec (I already knew semver). Are there other such small specifications for software development best-practices?

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Thanks for your positive feedback, happy to hear that! :slight_smile:

As a side note when I’ve read the Changelog I’ve discovered the Keep a Changelog spec (I already knew semver). Are there other such small specifications for software development best-practices?

I am no developer, so I don’t have a comparable good overview as @carmenbianca does for instance. We use Standard Readme in some projects, that might qualify as a best practice.

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