On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:50:58 +1000 Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > Neil Williams <codehelp@debian.org> writes: > > > Consensus can also be gleaned from the common practice of packages > > already in main. It is extremely common to find debian/copyright > > contains a single list of copyright holder details and a single > > licence statement, no matter how those copyright details are actually > > attributed throughout the source code. It still is the default > > template from dh_make. > > This tells me that there is consensus on doing what everyone else has > done, and consensus on reducing the amount of effort put into > ‘debian/copyright’. That's not new information; I'm looking for a > consensus on what that file should actually *mean*, since it's clear we > don't have agreement yet. It should mean only what it is required to mean by the licences to which it relates! debian/copyright is for LICENCE declarations, first and foremost. Copyright holder lists are incidental to the LICENCES. > > Policy only documents existing practice - if you want to know what > > Debian feels is the consensus on a packaging issue that is not > > described in Policy, studying existing practice is a valid way of > > discovering how to proceed with your own practice. > > This is true, but it's also true that without knowing the purpose of > ‘debian/copyright’, the consensus will simply tend toward “don't put > anything into it”. No, the consensus - as expressed by myself and Manoj in this thread and by the vast majority of debian/copyright files on your own system - is that debian/copyright is primarily about the licences. > Instead, it seems more relevant to me to ask: What does the information > in it mean The licences relating to the package. >, what is it for Licence compatibility assessment. >, and how much effort do we require of each > other to maintain it? Write once. > > We do not need every single stage to be laboriously mangled into > > legalese for Policy. > > Likewise, we don't need the guidance to be so implicit that the > information content spirals inexorably to zero. > Now that we've got the ridiculous extremes out of the way, that > presumably nobody actually supports, can we please get on with > discussing what the actual position should be? That debian/copyright is essentially misleadingly named and is primarily concerned with the licences and their requirements and little else. File a bug against the New Maintainer Guide and get on with the rest of your life, please. This has gone round and round in circles long enough. Let it GO! -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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