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

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Daniel Pocock wrote:

> Just to clarify, I do not believe that maintaining this field should be
> obligatory
>
> It should be an optional field
>
> Defining it formally in the standard and having some examples will help
> emphasize the difference between what people should put in the Copyright
> field and what should not be there.
>
> If a maintainer feels that some author is particularly noteworthy or
> deserving, then they can put that author's name in the field even if the
> author has no entitlement to appear in the copyright field.

Yes, I understood that.  Which is why I wrote

> On 03/02/14 20:17, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

>> 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.

Do you think this should be documented before people try it out and
figure out what kind of values make sense for the field?

I would be less excited about that, but I'm not opposed to it.  My
thoughts would then be

 - If possible, please find someone else to weigh in on how this is
   useful to them (e.g., do they have an example copyright file which
   it makes cleaner?).

 - I suspect 'Authors' is not a good name for this field.  The word
   is too tightly tied to copyright, 'rights of the author', legal
   authorship, and so on.  Something like 'Contributors' should be
   fine, though.

 - Have you been using this field in your packages?  If not, is policy
   getting in the way of that?  (That would be a more serious bug and
   worth addressing first as a stopgap.)

Jonathan