Bug#65764: changelog shouldn't be in the copyright file
On Sat, Jun 17, 2000 at 11:57:22PM -0400, Brian Mays wrote:
> But wait. That is not all. We are not redistributing the copywritten
> material exactly as we received it. The software has been modified in
> some way. (At the very least, we have added files to the source tree.)
> Therefore, we also need permission to distribute a modified version
> of the software. Fortunately, this is also covered by the license
> information that we have included. With this in mind, however, since we
> are distributing a modified version of someone else's work, I think it
> is prudent to also include a summary of our modifications. Furthermore,
> I think that it makes sense to keep this list of modifications with the
> information on the licensing agreement that allows us to make these
> modifications.
While I agree with you that this is a good idea, it is not current practice
(at least I haven't seen any summaries in any newer packages, just the old
ones). Policy says that the copyright file _must_ contain that summary,
meaning that a considerable amount of Debian packages is not Policy
compliant in that regard. Which means that someone oughta go and find all
those uncompliant packages and file bug reports against them.
My proposal may not be something that's The Right Thing(TM) to do, but it's
at least practical. In the long term (think 10000 source packages), it's an
illusion that maintainers will make these summaries and maintain them over
time. The Incoming/REJECT/ directory on ftp-master is usually full of
rejected packages because their copyright files didn't include the
license (!).
--
Digital Electronic Being Intended for Assassination and Nullification
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