The entire value of a single-line field must be on a single line. For example, the Format field has a single-line value specifying the version of the machine-readable format that is used.

Field values defined as whitespace-separated lists may be on one line or many. Values in the list are separated by one or more whitespace characters (space, tab, or newline). For example, the Files field contains a whitespace-separated list of filename patterns.

Line-based lists have one value per line. For example, the Upstream-Contact field contains a line-based list of contact addresses.

Formatted text fields use the same rules as the long description in a package's Description field in Debian control files.

In some but not all cases, the first line may have special meaning as a synopsis, similar to how the Description field uses the first line for the short description. See Debian Policy's section 5.6.13, “Description”, for details. For example, Disclaimer is a formatted text field that has no special first line, and License is a formatted text field where the first line indicates the short name or names of the licenses.

The following fields may be present in a header stanza.

The Copyright and License fields in the header stanza may complement but do not replace the fields in the Files stanzas. If present, they summarise the copyright notices or redistribution terms for the package as a whole.

For example, when a work has a grant of license under both a permissive and a copyleft license, License can be used to clarify the license terms for the combination. Copyright and License together can also be used to document a compilation copyright and license.

It is valid to use License in the header stanza without an accompanying Copyright field, but Copyright alone is not sufficient.

Format: https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
Source: https://www.example.com/software/project
Upstream-Name: SOFTware
Upstream-Contact: John Doe <[email protected]>

The declaration of copyright and license for files may consist of one or more stanzas. In the simplest case, a single stanza with Files: * can be used to state the license and copyright for the whole package. Only the license and copyright information required by the Debian archive is required to be listed here.

The following fields may be present in a Files stanza.

Files:
 *
Copyright: 1975-2010 Ulla Upstream
License: GPL-2+

Files:
 debian/*
Copyright: 2010 Daniela Debianizer
License: GPL-2+

Files:
 debian/patches/fancy-feature
Copyright: 2010 Daniela Debianizer
License: GPL-3+

Files:
 */*.1
Copyright: 2010 Manuela Manpager
License: GPL-2+

Stand-alone License stanzas can be used to provide the full license text for a given license once, instead of repeating it in each Files stanza that refers to it.

The synopsis (on the first line) of the License field must be a single license short name or a short name followed by a license exception.

The following fields may be present in a stand-alone License stanza.

Files: src/js/editline/*
Copyright: 1993, John Doe
           1993, Joe Average
License: MPL-1.1 or GPL-2 or LGPL-2.1

License: MPL-1.1
 [LICENSE TEXT]

License: GPL-2
 [LICENSE TEXT]

License: LGPL-2.1
 [LICENSE TEXT]

Files:
 src/js/editline/*
Copyright: 1993, John Doe
           1993, Joe Average
License: MPL-1.1

Files:
 src/js/fdlibm/*
Copyright: 1993, J-Random Corporation
License: MPL-1.1

License: MPL-1.1
 [LICENSE TEXT]

Single-line: URI of the format specification. The field that should be used for the current version of this document is:

Format: https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/

The original version of this specification used the non-https version of this URL as its URI, namely:

Format: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/

Both versions are valid and refer to the same specification, and parsers should interpret both as referencing the same format. The https URI is preferred.

Single-line: the name upstream uses for the software

Line-based list: the preferred address(es) to reach the upstream project. May be free-form text, but by convention will usually be written as a list of RFC5322 addresses or URIs.

Formatted text, no synopsis: an explanation of where the upstream source came from. Typically this would be a URL, but it might be a free-form explanation. The Debian Policy section 12.5 requires this information unless there are no upstream sources, which is mainly the case for native Debian packages. If the upstream source has been modified to remove non-free parts, that should be explained in this field.

Formatted text, no synopsis: this field is used for non-free or contrib packages to state that they are not part of Debian and to explain why (see Debian Policy section 12.5).

Formatted text, no synopsis: this field can provide additional information. For example, it might quote an e-mail from upstream justifying why the license is acceptable to the main archive, or an explanation of how this version of the package has been forked from a version known to be DFSG-free, even though the current upstream version is not.

Formatted text, with synopsis.

In the header stanza, this field gives the license information for the package as a whole, which may be different or simplified from a combination of all the per-file license information. In a Files stanza, this field gives the licensing terms for the files listed in the Files field for this stanza. In a stand-alone License stanza, it gives the licensing terms for those stanzas which reference it.

First line (synopsis): an abbreviated name for the license, or expression giving alternatives (see the Short name section for a list of standard abbreviations). If there are licenses present in the package without a standard short name, an arbitrary short name may be assigned for these licenses. These arbitrary names are only guaranteed to be unique within a single copyright file.

If there are no remaining lines, then all of the short names or short names followed by license exceptions in the synopsis must be described in stand-alone License stanzas. Otherwise, this field should either include the full text of the license(s) or include a pointer to the license file under /usr/share/common-licenses. This field should include all text needed in order to fulfill both Debian Policy's requirement for including a copy of the software's distribution license (12.5), and any license requirements to include warranty disclaimers or other notices with the binary package.

Formatted text, no synopsis: one or more free-form copyright statements. Any formatting is permitted; see the examples below for some ideas for how to structure the field to make it easier to read. In the header stanza, this field gives the copyright information for the package as a whole, which may be different or simplified from a combination of all the per-file copyright information. In the Files stanzas, it gives the copyright information that applies to the files matched by the Files pattern. If a work has no copyright holder (i.e., it is in the public domain), that information should be recorded here.

The Copyright field collects all relevant copyright notices for the files of this stanza. Not all copyright notices may apply to every individual file, and years of publication for one copyright holder may be gathered together. For example, if file A has:

Copyright 2008 John Smith
Copyright 2009 Angela Watts

and file B has:

Copyright 2010 Angela Watts

a single stanza may still be used for both files. The Copyright field for that stanza would contain:

Copyright 2008 John Smith
Copyright 2009, 2010 Angela Watts

The Copyright field may contain the original copyright statement copied exactly (including the word “Copyright”), or it may shorten the text or merge it with other copyright statements as described above, as long as it does not sacrifice information. Examples in this specification use both forms.

Whitespace-separated list: list of patterns indicating files covered by the license and copyright specified in this stanza.

Filename patterns in the Files field are specified using a simplified shell glob syntax. Patterns are separated by whitespace.

Any other character following a backslash is an error.

This is the same pattern syntax as fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, or the argument to the -path test of the GNU find command, except that [] wildcards are not recognized.

Multiple Files stanzas are allowed. The last stanza that matches a particular file applies to it. More general stanzas should therefore be given first, followed by more specific overrides.

Exclusions are only supported by adding Files stanzas to override the previous match.

This syntax does not distinguish file names from directory names; a trailing slash in a pattern will never match any actual path. A whole directory tree may be selected with a pattern like "foo/*".

The space character, used to separate patterns, cannot be escaped with a backslash. A path like "foo bar" may be selected with a pattern like "foo?bar".

Much of the value of a machine-parseable copyright file lies in being able to correlate the licenses of multiple pieces of software. To that end, this spec defines standard short names for a number of commonly used licenses, which can be used in the synopsis (first line) of a License field.

These short names have the specified meanings across all uses of this file format, and must not be used to refer to any other licenses. Parsers may thus rely on these short names referring to the same licenses wherever they occur, without needing to parse or compare the full license text.

From time to time, licenses may be added to or removed from the list of standard short names. Such changes in the list of short names will always be accompanied by changes to the version of this standard and to the recommended Format value. Implementers who are parsing copyright files should take care not to assume anything about the meaning of license short names for unknown Format versions.

Use of a standard short name does not override the Debian Policy requirement to include the full license text in debian/copyright, nor any requirements in the license of the work regarding reproduction of legal notices. This information must still be included in the License field, either in a stand-alone License stanza or in the relevant files stanza.

For licenses that have multiple versions in use, the short name is formed from the general short name of the license family, followed by a dash and the version number. If the version number is omitted, the lowest version number is implied. When the license grant permits using the terms of any later version of that license, add a plus sign to the end of the short name. For example, the short name GPL refers to the GPL version 1 and is equivalent to GPL-1, although the latter is clearer and therefore preferred. If the package may be distributed under the GPL version 1 or any later version, use a short name of GPL-1+.

For SPDX compatibility, versions with trailing dot-zeroes are considered to be equivalent to versions without (e.g., “2.0.0” is considered equal to “2.0” and “2”).

Currently, the full text of the licenses is only available in the SPDX Open Source License Registry.

There are many versions of the MIT license. Please use Expat instead, when it matches.

An exception or clarification to a license is signalled in plain text, by appending with keywords exception to the short name. This document provides a list of keywords that must be used when referring to the most frequent exceptions. When exceptions other than these are in effect that modify a common license by granting additional permissions, you may use an arbitrary keyword not taken from the below list of keywords. When a license differs from a common license because of added restrictions rather than because of added permissions, a distinct short name should be used instead of with keywords exception.

Only one exception may be specified for each license within a given license specification. If more than one exception applies to a single license, an arbitrary short name indicating that combination of multiple exceptions must be used instead.

The GPL Font exception refers to the text added to the license notice of each file as specified at How does the GPL apply to fonts. The precise text corresponding to this exception is:

As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font,
and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the
document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to
be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not
however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered
by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this font, you may
extend this exception to your version of the font, but you are not
obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception
statement from your version.

The GPL OpenSSL exception gives permission to link GPL-licensed code with the OpenSSL library, which contains GPL-incompatible clauses. For more information, see The OpenSSL License and The GPL by Mark McLoughlin and the message middleman software license conflicts with OpenSSL by Mark McLoughlin on the debian-legal mailing list. The text corresponding to this exception is:

In addition, as a special exception, the copyright holders give
permission to link the code of portions of this program with the
OpenSSL library under certain conditions as described in each
individual source file, and distribute linked combinations including
the two.

You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all
of the code used other than OpenSSL. If you modify file(s) with this
exception, you may extend this exception to your version of the
file(s), but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do
so, delete this exception statement from your version. If you delete
this exception statement from all source files in the program, then
also delete it here.

License names are case-insensitive, and may not contain spaces.

In case of multi-licensing, the license short names are separated by or when the user can chose between different licenses, and by and when use of the work must simultaneously comply with the terms of multiple licenses.

For instance, this is a simple, “GPL version 2 or later” field:

License: GPL-2+

This is a dual-licensed GPL/Artistic work such as Perl:

License: GPL-1+ or Artistic

This is for a file that has both GPL and classic BSD code in it:

License: GPL-2+ and BSD-3-clause

For the most complex cases, a comma is used to disambiguate the priority of ors and ands. The conjunction “and” has priority over “or” unless preceded by a comma. For instance:

A or B and C means A or (B and C).

A or B, and C means (A or B) and C.

This is for a file that has Perl code and classic BSD code in it:

License: GPL-2+ or Artistic-2.0, and BSD-3-clause

A GPL-2+ work with the OpenSSL exception is in effect a dual-licensed work that can be redistributed either under the GPL-2+, or under the GPL-2+ with the OpenSSL exception. It is thus expressed as GPL-2+ with OpenSSL exception. A possible License field for such a license is:

License: GPL-2+ with OpenSSL exception
 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; either version 2 of the License, or
 (at your option) any later version.
 .
 In addition, as a special exception, the author of this program gives
 permission to link the code of its release with the OpenSSL project's
 "OpenSSL" library (or with modified versions of it that use the same
 license as the "OpenSSL" library), and distribute the linked executables.
 You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of
 the code used other than "OpenSSL".  If you modify this file, you may
 extend this exception to your version of the file, but you are not
 obligated to do so.  If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception
 statement from your version.
 .
 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 GNU General Public License for more details.
 .
 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 along with this package; if not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
Comment:
 On Debian systems, the full text of the GNU General Public License
 version 2 can be found in the file '/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2'.

SPDX is an attempt to standardize a format for communicating the components, licenses and copyrights associated with a software package. It and the machine-readable debian/copyright format attempt to be somewhat compatible. However, the two formats have different aims, and so the formats are different. The DEP5 wiki page will be used to track the differences.