Bug#677013: RFS: time
Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:
> To answer my own question it is stated here:
> http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile
> In addition, the copyright file must say where the upstream sources
> (if any) were obtained, and should name the original authors.
> So definitely stated by Policy the original authors must be named.
The way that I would interpret that section for a typical GNU package is
that the Free Software Foundation is the original authors (assuming, of
course, it was a GNU package). One *could* get more specific by listing
the specific volunteers who did that work as part of the GNU project (but
there isn't really a good spot for doing that other than a Comment
section, as you mention), but I don't think Policy should be read as
requiring that.
To take a similar example, all the Shibboleth packages that I maintain
just have the copyright notices for UCAID and do not attempt to document
that much of the code was written by Scott Cantor. They could, I suppose,
and I wouldn't *object* if someone did that, but prior to this thread it
didn't even occur to me to read Policy in that way; UCAID is the legal
author from a copyright perspective and the organization under whose
aegis the development was done, and to me that always seemed to fit
Policy's requirement.
I think this section in Policy is ambiguous and not particularly
well-worded. Historically, it significantly predates the DEP-5 format,
and I always thought of it more as a place to record who was developing
the upstream source alongside where one got it from. During development
of DEP-5, what part there might be not covered by the Copyright lines
ended up in the standard as Upstream-Contact, which implies several
things: that "original" was taken to mean essentially "upstream," not "the
first person to ever work on this source base," and that the point was
taken more as a way of locating the original development.
I'll go open a Policy bug about this to remember to hash out how to
clarify it. It's possible that after further discussion my interpretation
will be considered wrong by consensus, but as you mention, I think it's a
common interpretation by other packagers of GNU software.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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