Re: modified email address in debian/copyright file

[Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi>]

ti, 2007-09-25 kello 17:07 +1000, Ben Finney kirjoitti:
> Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi> writes:
> 
> > If they distribute their work without an e-mail address attached,
> > should the Debian packager go dig one up?
> > 
> > If they distribute their work with the attached e-mail address
> > obfuscated in some way, should the Debian packager un-obfuscate it?
> 
> I'm of the opinion that a copyright statement for the work in a Debian
> package should include valid contact details, preferably an email
> address, for the work's primary copyright holders at the time the work
> was packaged.

There are other kinds of contact details than syntactically valid e-mail
addresses. I was asking, specifically, whether an e-mail address should
be required, in your opinion, and whether Debian should un-obfuscate it
if upstream obfuscates it.

> To knowingly accept packages without that is to knowingly accept a
> copyright statement that is unverifiable to third parties, purely in
> the interest of someone who wants to hold copyright but not give a
> valid email address. I think that's an unacceptable risk for Debian to
> take.

Having a string in debian/copyright that looks like a valid e-mail
address does not mean that Debian has verified that whoever claims the
copyright actually has the copyright. If you want to talk risk
management, I think it's silly to stop at a valid-looking e-mail
address, and not do things like verify that the person exists, and
looking around the net for things that look similar to the work being
packaged. At least. You never know, they might have copied some or all
of the stuff from someone else, and merely put their own name (and
e-mail address) on top of it.

In any case, un-obfuscating an e-mail address when putting it into
debian/copyright is in no way required to verify copyright statements.

-- 
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kuuluu.