Re: "Invariant name" in hello's debian/rules file

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Robert Millan <zeratul2@wanadoo.es> wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> Trying to distress a bit the recent *cough* discussion in -private, I think
> it's a good moment for rising my point in -legal (where it should be). I
> recently found this in the debian/rules file for GNU Hello (which, it is well
> known, has been copied to death into hundreds of other debian packages).
> 
>   # Sample debian/rules file - for GNU Hello.
>   # Copyright 1994,1995 by Ian Jackson.
>   # I hereby give you perpetual unlimited permission to copy,
>   # modify and relicense this file, provided that you do not remove
>   # my name from the file itself.  (I assert my moral right of
>   # paternity under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.)
>   # This file may have to be extensively modified
> 
> The license states that you can't remove the name from the file itself. I'm
> sure this is not what Ian intended, but one could add this line all over the
> file:
> 
>   # Ian Jackson
> 
> and then it can't be removed. It all gets very confusing if we apply the same
> reasoning as for GFDL's Invariant sections. What do you people think?

Why don't you ask Ian for clarification?  He probably meant that you
can't remove the copyright notice, which is no problem.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu