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Re: LiDIA's statement of GPL only in mailing list archives



On Wed, 11 Jul 2007, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Don Armstrong:
> > On Mon, 09 Jul 2007, Florian Weimer wrote:
> >> * Don Armstrong: 
> >> > On Sun, 08 Jul 2007, Ben Finney wrote:
> >> >> An email has been judged sufficient for many Debian packages, if it
> >> >> unambiguously specifies all of the above, and is clearly from the
> >> >> copyright holder. Copy and paste into the 'debian/copyright' file
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> >> the part of the message that has all that information, along with
> >> >> that message's 'date', 'from', 'message-id' fields.
> >> >
> >> > Yeah; bonus points if the message is GPG signed by a key which is in
> >> > and multiply connected to strongly connected set.
> >> 
> >> Yeah, as if this made it a particularly authoritative source for
> >> any kind of legal statement. 8-)
> >
> > Short of having a notarized signed statement, it's the best we can
> > do; while there are obviously methods of exploiting it, it's
> > clearly better than just an e-mail. Most importantly, it allows us
> > to have a reasonable belief that the copyright holder has actually
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > licensed us to distribute the work.
> 
> Huh?  Why do you think so?
> 
> In most cases, the difficult question is not whether the statement
> was made by the purported author, but whether the author is entitled
> to make that statement on behalf of the actual copyright owner.

You'll note that in no case did Ben Finney or myself talk about
"author"; we instead use "copyright holder" for precisely this reason.

Whoever the copyright holder is (or their legal representative) needs
to notify the package maintainer or Debian of the license on the code,
ideally in some sort of manner that clearly comes from the copyright
holder.


Don Armstrong

-- 
One day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven and almost went back
in time.
 -- Steven Wright

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu



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