Bug#566220: [PATCH] Clarify "verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license"

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Steve Langasek wrote:

> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -570,7 +570,7 @@
>  
>  	<p>
>  	  Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> -	  its copyright and distribution license in the file
> +	  its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
>  	  <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
>  	  (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
>  	</p>

For what it’s worth, I have not noticed a wide consensus for this
reading.  It can be nice to have all notices in one place for a
variety of reasons (for example as evidence that the package
maintainer took them into account), but in all but the smallest of
packages, maintainers do not do that, nor do they seem to think it
would be desirable.

Is it intended that the linux-image-* packages, for example, include a
verbatim copy of all the copyright notices from Linux source files?

Instead, I have always read that passage to mean

	Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
	its copyright information and distribution license in
	the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.

For the Linux kernel, a copy of COPYING would be sufficient, if it
adequately described the copyright situation (and of course it
doesn’t, but that’s a separate issue).

I agree with the goal of making clear whatever reading is
historically correct.  Would s/notices/information/ do that?

Jonathan