Bug#566220: [PATCH] Clarify "verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license"
Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
> Steve Langasek wrote:
>> --- a/policy.sgml
>> +++ b/policy.sgml
>> @@ -570,7 +570,7 @@
>>
>> <p>
>> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
>> - its copyright and distribution license in the file
>> + its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
>> <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
>> (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
>> </p>
> For what it’s worth, I have not noticed a wide consensus for this
> reading. It can be nice to have all notices in one place for a
> variety of reasons (for example as evidence that the package
> maintainer took them into account), but in all but the smallest of
> packages, maintainers do not do that, nor do they seem to think it
> would be desirable.
> Is it intended that the linux-image-* packages, for example, include a
> verbatim copy of all the copyright notices from Linux source files?
> Instead, I have always read that passage to mean
> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> its copyright information and distribution license in
> the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.
I think this is a better wording for the existing situation. However...
> For the Linux kernel, a copy of COPYING would be sufficient, if it
> adequately described the copyright situation (and of course it
> doesn’t, but that’s a separate issue).
...exactly. One would still, by what Policy has historically said, need
to find and accumulate the copyright notices if upstream hasn't already
done that. Saying copyright information instead of copyright notices does
reflect the fact that as long as the information is there, it doesn't
matter if it has exactly the same formatting.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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