REUSE Tool does not ignore files beginning with LICENSE

[AliSajid]

I'm working on a project that was up until recently REUSE compliant. I had two files, LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE in the repository to have GitHub license recognition work as well as a .reuse/dep5 and the LICENSES directory.

Today as I upgraded to reuse tool 4.0.2 from 3.0.2, I see a non-compliance warning with the above 2 license files being marked as not containing a license. As I understand from #881 that the tool ignores the files that start with LICENSE. Please advise on how to proceed here.

Repository: CogDisResLab/Kaleidoscope

[carmenbianca]

Hi @AliSajid. Copying from the change log:

- Previously, any file that begins with `COPYING` or `LICENSE` was ignored. This
  has been changed. Now, files like `COPYING_README` are no longer ignored, but
  `COPYING` and `COPYING.txt` are still ignored (in other words: exact matches,
  or `COPYING` + a file extension). Idem ditto for `LICENSE`. (#886)

It should suffice to rename to LICENSE.MIT.

[sorairolake]

LICENSE.APACHE may not be recognized correctly on https://pkg.go.dev/ (see License Disclaimer). However, this may be something the other side should fix.

[carmenbianca]

This is possibly also an issue that could be solved here, although it would annoyingly require a spec bump, which is not ideal at all. I'll get back on this.

[sorairolake]

LICENSE.APACHE may not be recognized correctly on https://pkg.go.dev/ (see License Disclaimer). However, this may be something the other side should fix.

This may be solved by merging LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE into a single file (LICENSE):

Apache License 2.0 text

---

MIT License text

[AliSajid]

Thank you for this detailed response and I appreciate you helping me out. REUSE is a great project and I'm indebted to your team for it. Thank you.

[carmenbianca]

You're welcome @AliSajid ! I will re-open this issue because I am discussing it tomorrow with the team.