Re: Why do we list individual copyright holders?
Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de> writes:
> On Mon, 18 Dec 2017 20:01:12 -0500, Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@ubuntu.com>
> wrote:
> >I was forced to spend a few hours doing a thorough copyright file
> >earlier this year for mozjs52 which is simply the JavaScript engine
> >from Firefox 52 ESR. I first tried copying the Firefox 52 ESR's
> >copyright file (removing the extra lines that didn't apply to this
> >more minimal source) but it wasn't complete enough. (mozjs52 is
> >essential for GNOME Shell 3.26.)
>
> In the long run, this is going to keep big software packages from
> being packaged for Debian.
We (the Debian Project) don't have to accept being the *only* ones
shouldering this burden. Large upstream organisations have large
shoulders.
Surely a team responsible for a large code base also must – to avoid
self-delusion – confront the need to know, with confidence that comes
from standard, verifiable documentation, the provenance of works from
which their code base is derived.
This is quite apart from any requirements the Debian Project has; it is
part of distributing any work that derives from many copyright holders
over a log history of changes.
Our conversations about this with upstream maintainers can, I think,
more often be collaborative in nature. Instead of appealing to only one
party's policy, appeal rather to the common need for this knowledge to
be gathered, and maintained, and recorded somewhere, in a standard
format for reference by anyone when needed.
--
\ “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the |
`\ mind is repelled.” —John Kenneth Galbraith, _Money: Whence It |
_o__) Came, Where It Went_, 1975 |
Ben Finney
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