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Re: License for code comments in postgis package


It appears that redistribution of that
document in its entirety is permitted, however nothing is said about partial
extracts.

Partial extracts (in the code), to which those extracts **reference**
back to the original document, fall under FAIR use.


Do we (and upstream) have permission to distribute the resulting source code (as GPL or otherwise)?

Yes. Per the copyright notice, it retains the ability to be freely redistributed.


Should Joseph O'Rouke be listed in the debian/copyright file?

If you include a copy of that FAQ within the package (which you should), then yes.


On January 26, 2017 at 9:22 AM Joe Healy <joehealy@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

This may be a question for upstream rather than debian, but I thought I
would start here to see if anyone was aware of this issue or had dealt
with it previously.

At a number of places in the source code for postgis, reference is made
to the comp.graphics.algorithm FAQ [1].

As an example, see the comments at [2]. This appears to be a fairly
direct lifting of text from the FAQ, a document which a Joseph O'Rouke
is (claims to be?) the author of. It appears that redistribution of that
document in its entirety is permitted, however nothing is said about partial
extracts.

This article is Copyright 2003 by Joseph O'Rourke.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice is 
not removed.

Joseph O'Rourke does not appear to be listed in the debian/copyright file [3].

This gives rise to two questions (unfortunately rather pedantic questions):

1) Should Joseph O'Rouke be listed in the debian/copyright file?
2) Do we (and upstream) have permission to distribute the resulting source code (as GPL or otherwise)?

Hopefully this is not opening a can of worms.

Thanks,

Joe

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