On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 07:58:30PM -0400, Neil Roeth wrote: > I have a question about how I am supposed to handle upstream's files related > to copyrights and distribution. They provide a README file that has the > actual copyright notice, i.e., "Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 James Clark, > 1999 Matthias Clasen", and it refers to the COPYING file for permissions to > copy. COPYING is identical to /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2. There is the > required additional information about the Debian package, i.e., the copyright > for the Debian specific code, where the source can be obtained, etc., in > debian/copyright.Debian. > Until recently the entire COPYING file was included, but lintian started > complaining about a copy of the GPL being part of the package. > Policy says that "Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its > copyright and distribution license in the file > `/usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright'. This file must neither be compressed > nor be a symbolic link." It appears to me that README is the copyright and > COPYING is the distribution license, so it appears to me I need to put the > following in debian/copyright: > 1) the contents of README > 2) a note which refers to /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 > 3) the contents of debian/copyright.Debian Hmm, that's a curious wording in policy. Legally, there's no basis for referring to "a verbatim copy of its copyright [notice]"; the README may well contain other information that's not pertinent to the copyright notice per se, and ultimately, the real requirement is that the copyright notice you include in /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright be well-formed (according to the proper legal incantations, recently discussed on debian-legal) and accurate as to the identity of the copyright holders and the date of their copyrights. In that sense it is likely to be verbatim, if only because there are only so many ways you can express a copyright notice. Otherwise, this seems correct. Please send any legal-minutiae follow-ups to debian-legal@lists.debian.org. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
Attachment:
pgpofLOK96fJA.pgp
Description: PGP signature