Why do the docs claim a DEPENDENCIES file is needed?

[David Jencks <da...@gmail.com>]

https://felix.apache.org/documentation/development/dependencies-file-template.html claims that each released software archive (what is that? source? compiled? ???) must contain a “DEPENDENCIES” file.

Why? The information in it is either useless and misleading for OSGI (if the dependency is not included in the archive) or already required to be in NOTICE or LICENCE (if the dependency is included), which are actual Apache required files.

I may have inadvertently started the idea that a DEPENDENCIES file is useful, before I knew about OSGI, by getting maven to generate one, listing the maven dependencies.

Can we drop this page and stop this confusing and useless practice?

David Jencks

Re: Why do the docs claim a DEPENDENCIES file is needed?

[Raymond Auge <ra...@liferay.com.INVALID>]

+1

I haven't understood the need or use of this. But I wasn't sure if this was
a felix project thing, or an ASF thing so I ignored it.

- Ray

On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 9:05 PM David Jencks <da...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> https://felix.apache.org/documentation/development/dependencies-file-template.html
> claims that each released software archive (what is that? source? compiled?
> ???) must contain a “DEPENDENCIES” file.
>
> Why? The information in it is either useless and misleading for OSGI (if
> the dependency is not included in the archive) or already required to be in
> NOTICE or LICENCE (if the dependency is included), which are actual Apache
> required files.
>
> I may have inadvertently started the idea that a DEPENDENCIES file is
> useful, before I knew about OSGI, by getting maven to generate one, listing
> the maven dependencies.
>
> Can we drop this page and stop this confusing and useless practice?
>
> David Jencks



-- 
*Raymond Augé* <http://www.liferay.com/web/raymond.auge/profile>
 (@rotty3000)
Senior Software Architect *Liferay, Inc.* <http://www.liferay.com>
 (@Liferay)

Re: Why do the docs claim a DEPENDENCIES file is needed?

[Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>]

Hi,

On Fri, Sep 4, 2020 at 3:05 AM David Jencks <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> https://felix.apache.org/documentation/development/dependencies-file-template.html claims that each
> released software archive (what is that? source? compiled? ???) must contain a
> “DEPENDENCIES” file....

http://apache.org/legal/release-policy.html only requires LICENSE and
NOTICE but does not mention a DEPENDENCIES file.

I think the relevant part of that page is

>>  When a package bundles code under several licenses, the LICENSE file MUST contain
>> details of all these licenses.

So if something's bundled in an Apache Release (that is, a source code
release) that has impact on the LICENSE file but I agree that
DEPENDENCIES is not required.

-Bertrand