On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:10:12 +1000 Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > Neil Williams <codehelp@debian.org> writes: > > > Because it's a useless waste of time to make a spurious distinction > > where none needs to exist. > > We seem to largely be talking past each other. > > > Unless the files are under different licences, there is no reason to > > subdivide the copyright statements. > > This, though, seems to me to be a very concise and accurate summary of > your position. Correct? Correct. 100%. > If that's the case, then I can't see why you would bother collecting > copyright statements *at all*; Correct. I do so only to give attribution to the "main" contributors as a kind of kudos and because there needs to be something with a date and a name to make a Copyright statement for the licence. The definition of "main" is fuzzy but, as stated before in this thread, basically boils down to something like a file called AUTHORS in the source. So, in essence, I do *not* collect copyright statements in debian/copyright. I look at the AUTHORS file, if that is missing I do a quick check of the most common contributors and then I enter that data into debian/copyright. From that moment on, subsequent work on debian/copyright is solely determined by the LICENCES that apply. > the file ‘debian/copyright’ is > essentially a misnomer, and it should contain nothing but license grants > and terms. Please show me where I've misunderstood your position. You have not misunderstood my position. I agree with Manoj. debian/copyright is misnamed and actually has everything to do with licence declarations and precious little to do with copyright holders, other than as required by the licences themselves. Therefore, collation of copyright holders is explicitly recommended unless the licence requires otherwise, but collation of licence statements is explicitly forbidden under all circumstances. (Collation, in this sense means not the act of collecting from the source like an automaton, but the act of collapsing a series of long lists of names, years and email addresses into a short list of unique identifiers that applies across a group of files that are all under precisely the same LICENCE.) (I'm not entirely sure, but I'd guess that a licence that strictly requires the absolute, accurate and reliable expression of all individual copyright holders with the individual files for which they are known to hold copyright could well fail the DFSG - if only by being completely insane.) -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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