Re: Fixing old-fsf-address-in-copyright-file

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:

> Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
> 
> > In practice, that means:
> >
> > * explicit, unambiguous statements of which parties hold copyright in
> >   the work […] and when that copyright begins […] In other words,
> >   full UCC-style copyright statements including full years and legal
> >   entity names.
> 
> What if there is no such notice in the upstream source? It's not
> required by any legal jurisdiction that matters to Debian so far as
> I know, so it's not unreasonable for upstream to not bother.

Yes. I think that in those cases we get to write them, based on our
understanding of who the copyright holders are. The information needs
to be explicit, I think.

> Reading between the lines, it sounds like you don't think that the
> FSF address needs to be in the copyright file either, correct?

I'm undecided. I think it's part of the license grant; certainly the
FSF make much of the fact that the recipient needs to be explicitly
informed of the license so they have every opportunity to know what
their freedoms are.

-- 
 \         “If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all |
  `\    others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking |
_o__)                          power called an idea” —Thomas Jefferson |
Ben Finney