Re: Copyright for contributors

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Jongmin Kim <jmkim@pukyong.ac.kr> writes:
> On Sat, Jul 06, 2019 at 02:48:12AM +0900, Jongmin Kim wrote:

>> when upstream copyright text explicitly state the "contributors", like [1]:
>> 
>>     Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009, Paul Johnston & Contributors
>> 
>> what should I write at License: in d/copyright?
>> 
>> I could think
>> 
>>     License: 1998-2009 Paul Johnston & Contributors

>      Copyright: 1998-2009 Paul Johnston & Contributors

>> 
>> or just
>> 
>>     License: 1998-2009 Paul Johnston

>      Copyright: 1998-2009 Paul Johnston

I would just copy the upstream notice verbatim, so the first of your two
examples.  This may or may not be the best possible copyright notice from
a legal standpoint, but that isn't really our concern, and usually
licenses that require preserving copyright notices just want us to
preserve whatever notice upstream decided to write.

There's generally no useful purpose served in trying to improve upstream's
copyright notices or make them more accurate, and it arguably can be a
technical violation of some licenses that require preserving copyright
notices.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>