# Change log from REUSE v2.0 to v3.0

The following changes were made to the specification:

- `SPDX-Copyright: Jane Doe` is now the recommended way to mark a copyright
  notice instead of `Copyright (C) Jane Doe`. `Copyright` and `©` are still
  supported as prefixes.

  Rationale: `SPDX-Copyright` is visually consistent with
  `SPDX-License-Identifier`, which communicates to the reader that the two items
  belong together. As a slight added benefit, `SPDX-Copyright` is easier to
  parse.

- The specification no longer makes a recommendation on how to deal with
  licenses such as BSD and MIT that themselves contain editable copyright
  notices.

  Rationale: This was rather out-of-scope for REUSE, and the lawyers of the
  adopter probably know better.

- License files can now only be placed in `LICENSES/[spdx-identifier].[ext]`
  files, instead of the default `LICENSE`, `COPYING`, etc.. As a result, the
  `Valid-License-Identifier` tag is no longer needed.

  Rationale: Having a license file in the root of the project is handy, but we
  believe it is more valuable to have all licenses in one place, so that there
  can be no confusion about the licenses used by a project.

- The DEP5 file which bulk-licenses directories as a sort of global
  configuration file was moved from `debian/copyright` to `.reuse/dep5`.

  Rationale: This avoids a namespace conflict.

- The specification now makes a recommendation on the format of copyright
  notices, but does not mandate anything other than that the copyright notice
  contain the name of the copyright holder. The format is roughly:
  `SPDX-Copyright: 2019 Jane Doe <jane@example.com>`

  Rationale: This provides a simple recommendation that should be good for most
  people.

- The specification no longer makes any mention of version control systems to
  track copyright.

  Rationale: These recommendations were far too abstract, so they were simply
  scrapped.

- The specification no longer mentions a bill of materials (SPDX Document).

  Rationale: This is out-of-scope for the spec.

Further changes made to REUSE:

- An FAQ and much-needed tutorial are added to help people along, instead of
  letting the specification do double duty as a tutorial.

- The three steps have been changed from

  1. Provide the exact text of each license used
  2. Include a copyright notice and license in each file
  3. Provide an inventory for included software

  to

  1. Choose and provide licenses
  2. Add copyright and licensing information to each file
  3. Confirm REUSE compliance

- The tool has been updated to be a lot friendlier to use, and to print more
  helpful linting output. In a future release it will automate some tasks (e.g.,
  adding copyright and licensing information headers to specified files).