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Re: debian/copyright and po files



Hugh McMaster <hugh.mcmaster@outlook.com> writes:

> Many of the files contain the following format:
>
> # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE.
> # Copyright (C) YEAR THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER
> # This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
> #
> # Translators:
> # Name 1 <email>, Year
> # Name 2 <email>, Year 1 - Year 2
>
> Do names listed under the "Translators" heading count as copyright
> holders?

Whether a person's creative work is restricted by copyright law, is a
matter less for Debian project members and more for experts in copyright
law.

So your question could be intepreted in multiple ways:

Are you asking, Does copyright law in some specific jurisdiction
restrict the actions of the recipient conditional on license from the
translators who contributed to that work?

(That's what I understand by “do these people count as copyright
holders”. It's a vexed question in many cases.)

Are you asking, Must the Debian package list the translators separately
in its ‘debian/copyright’ document?

That question depends in part on the vexed legal question, above; it
also depends in part on what level of documentation the FTP masters will
accept for a package.

> Do I need to record these names, or is there a generic attribution
> that I can use?

As a practical matter, I find it sufficient to list “© 1984–1997 Foo Bar
and others” (where “Foo Bar” is whatever primary party is recorded in
the upstream source work) — *if* there is no special effort in the
source work to document copyright more explicitly for translators.

In the case (which I have not encountered) where the upstream work does
specially record the copyright held by translators, I would use that
information for the ‘debian/copyright’ document.

-- 
 \        “Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a |
  `\          dotted line. He caught every other fish.” —Steven Wright |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney


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