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QUIP: 7
Title: qt_attribution.json File Format
Author: Kai Köhne
Status: Active
Type: Implementation
Created: 2017-02-15
Post-History: http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/2017-March/029198.html
Overview
========
From Qt 5.8, Qt modules document their 3rd party code in qt_attribution.json
files. The format is JSON-based and can be processed with the
qtattributionscanner tool.
This QUIP is about the file format of the qt_attribution.json files.
See QUIP 4 for the process on how to add and update 3rd party code to Qt.
File Format
===========
A qt_attribution.json file needs to contain one JSON object or an array of such
objects. Each object's properties have the following meanings:
Id
Unique name for component, without spaces. All lower case. Mandatory.
Name
Descriptive name of the component, without version number. Camel case.
Mandatory.
QDocModule
The qch file the documentation of the component should be part of. Mandatory.
QtParts
Array with possible entries "examples", "tests", "tools", or "libs".
Components that will be included in Qt libraries or plugins should set
"libs", components that will be included in executables like Qt Designer or
are part of the build infrastructure "tools".
Optional, default is [ "libs" ].
QtUsage
Free text on where the Third-Party Component in Qt is used, when it is
included (e.g. if it's limited to a specific platform), how to avoid it
(e.g. by using configure options), and what functionality is missing in
this case.
Mandatory.
Path
(Relative) path to the sources. Default is same directory as the file.
Optional.
Description
A short description of what the component is and is used for. Optional.
Homepage
Homepage of the upstream project. Optional.
Version
Version used from the upstream project. This can also be a revision number
or commit hash from a version control system.
Optional.
DownloadLocation
Link to exact upstream version. Optional.
License
The license under which the component is distributed, preferably with the
names from SPDX [1]_ 'Full Name'. Mandatory.
LicenseId
SPDX License Identifier [1]_, or an SPDX Expression [2]_. Optional.
LicenseFile
Relative path to file containing the license text. Optional for code in the
Public Domain, otherwise needed.
Copyright
Aggregated list of copyright lines. Mandatory.
The list can be edited for brevity by, for example, combining different
copyright years for the same author. Terms like "All rights reserved" can be
removed, too.
If there are too many copyright lines in the sources, aggregating them into::
Copyright YYYY The x project contributors
or::
Copyright YYYY <main author> and contributors
is also acceptable.
Related Work
============
The issue of attributing Third-Party Components correctly is known in a lot of
projects and companies. Some companies require elaborate documents about
Third-Party Components from their suppliers. Multiple projects have invented
their own formats for documenting Third-Party Components and licenses.
SPDX
----
SPDX [3]_ (Software Package Data Exchange) is a standard format for
communicating the components, licenses and copyrights associated with a
software package. It supports several file formats (XML, RDF, Key/Value), and
is aimed to be generated by code-scanning tools.
We have adapted the SPDX license list [1]_, but considered the standard itself
to be too heavy for our use. However, it should be possible to generate
(parts of) SPDX files out of the qt_attribution.json files.
debian/copyright files
----------------------
Debian has established a convention for making their debian/copyright files
machine-readable [4]_. This is meant to be used on the packaging level.
README.chromium files
---------------------
README.chromium files [5]_ are used by Google Chrome to generate the
'about://credits' page. Qt WebEngine uses them also to document the Third-Party
Components inside Chromium. Compared to qt_attribution.json files, the format
is not strictly enforced.
References
==========
.. [1] https://spdx.org/licenses/
.. [2] https://spdx.org/spdx-specification-21-web-version#h.jxpfx0ykyb60
.. [3] https://spdx.org/specifications
.. [4] https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
.. [5] https://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/third_party/README.chromium.template
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