Bug#566220: [PATCH] Clarify “copyright and distribution license”

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

user debian-policy@packages.debian.org
usertags 566220 + seconded
thanks

Hi,

Jonathan Nieder wrote:

> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -569,8 +569,8 @@
>  	<heading>Copyright considerations</heading>
>  
>  	<p>
> -	  Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> -	  its copyright and distribution license in the file
> +	  Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
> +	  copyright information and distribution license in the file
>  	  <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
>  	  (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
>  	</p>
[etc]

I see seconds by

  Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> (message #137)
  Thijs Kinkhorst <thijs@debian.org> (message #142)
  Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> (message #147)
  gregor herrmann <gregoa@debian.org> (message #152)

Some of the discussion was derailed by my overreaching commit message.
I think it’s worth scratching that and just saying the relevant things.

  Be explicit about the need for copyright statements in debian/copyright, to
  clear up an ambiguity pointed out by Ben Finney.

  This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices” to reflect
  the fact that as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if it
  has exactly the same formatting.  For example, combining the dates from
  multiple copyright notices is a common practice.

What is the next step?

Jonathan