How (not) to write copyright files - take two

[Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org>]

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Hi

A while ago Peter 'weasel' Palfrader wrote a nice little "How (not) to
write copyright files"[1]. Please read that *now*.

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/12/msg00007.html 


As *many* rejects out of the NEW-Queue[2] are still due to broken or
incomplete copyright-files - lets refresh that information.

[2] http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html


Your debian/copyright file must contain the following information:

 - The author(s) name
 - The year(s) of the copyright
 - The used license(s)
 - The URL to the upstream source

In many packages there is more than one author, more than one
copyright-holder and more than one license. Do not miss to list them
all, even if that other license is just for one file. Yes, any single
file is important.

Some extra hints:

- Its not enough to have the following two-liner:
  | On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License
  | can be found in the `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL' file.

  There are license headers, like the one used for GPL in the example below, you
  should use those.

- Ideally you include a license statement for your Debian packaging
  also.

- A good example looks like:
  | This package was debianized by VICTIMS NAME <victims@email.address> on
  | DATE.
  |
  | The current Debian maintainer is YOUR NAME <your@email.address>
  |
  | It was downloaded from: http://www.download.address/foo.bar.tgz
  |
  | Upstream Authors: Homer Simpson, Bart Simpson, Maggie Simpson
  |
  | Copyright: 1971 - 2001 Homer Simpson
  |            2001 - 2006 Bart Simpson
  |
  |  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  |  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  |  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License.
  |
  |  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  |  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  |  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  |  GNU General Public License for more details.
  |
  |  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License with
  |  the Debian GNU/Linux distribution in file /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL;
  |  if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place,
  |  Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
  |
  | On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public
  | License, version 2, can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2.
  |
  | The Files in lib/maggie are Copyright 2005, 2006 Maggie Simpson
  |
  |  This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  |  modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
  |  License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
  |  version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  |
  |  This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  |  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  |  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
  |  Lesser General Public License for more details.
  |
  |  You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
  |  License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
  |  Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
  |
  | On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU Lesser General Public
  | License, can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL.
  |
  | The Debian packaging is (C) 2006, YOUR NAME <your@email.address> and
  | is licensed under the GPL, see above.

-- 
bye Joerg
Some NM:
main contains software that compiles with DFSG.
[hehehe, nice typo]
Of course, eye mean "complies", knot "compiles".  Sum typos cant bee
caught bye spelling checkers.

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