Re: copyright precision

[Ole Streicher <olebole@debian.org>]

Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> writes:
> It's at least worth a discussion whether nitpicking at d/copyright is
> really helping the package quality at all, and if it's worth it.

I see here another reason -- and an argument actually *for* Debian
packaging (being different from, f.e. MacPorts or Conda):

Detailed investigation of the upstream copyright, and the discussion
with upstream, helps very much to improve to code quality
(wrt. licensing). For my (science/astronomy) packages, it lead to quite
many discussions with upstream, and finally to changes in their
licensing scheme, which in turn makes it better for our community to
bring our software together.

I always use this as one argument when it comes to "Why should be care
about Debian? Our users use something else", that packaging includes a
careful review and documentation of the copyright.

So, it is not just about packaging quality, but also about code quality
in general.

Best

Ole