Bug#737559: copyright-format: author != copyright, add an author field?

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

severity 737559 wishlist
user debian-policy@packages.debian.org
usertags 737559 = normative issue
quit

Hi Daniel,

Daniel Pocock wrote:

> Author and copyright holder are not always the same person/entity.
[...]
> License: GPL2
> Copyright: 2014, Acme, Inc http://acme.example.org
> Author: Bob, http://example.org/bob

Sure.  A few thoughts:

 - I don't think debian/copyright needs to list everyone who
   contributed to the code --- to me, the copyright holders and some
   contact information for upstream seem more important, and the
   detailed authorship information can go elsewhere (e.g., a README or
   THANKS file, or the changelog).  But policy's more ambiguous about
   that.  See http://bugs.debian.org/678607.

 - The above is already valid syntax, since custom fields can be added
   to any paragraph.  Feel free to try it and let us know how it goes.
   (copyright-format sayeth:

	No prefixing is necessary or desired, but please avoid names
	similar to standard ones so that mistakes are easier to catch.
	Future versions of the debian/copyright specification will
	attempt to avoid conflicting specifications for widely used
	extra fields.

   )

 - Response when this last came up[1]:

	This is nice in spirit, but I would personnally not feel like
	maintaining a contributor list, because there is mostly only
	blame to get in case it is inaccurate, so I would only use the
	field to point at a contributors file.

	This is the kind of field that I would prefer to see tested in
	real life before being standardised in DEP-5.

So, I think this is a reasonable idea, and if more than two or so
packages start using the field then it's probably worth documenting in
policy to allow tools to start to consume it if they like.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2010/07/msg00088.html