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

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Daniel Pocock wrote:

> I've only come across one package which included public-domain material
> so far.  In this case, I put a note about the author in the comments.

Yep - that works, too.

[...]
> One risk of not having this extra field is that we could accumulate
> excessive things in the Copyright field.  E.g. some packagers may be
> including the names of contributors as if they are copyright holders
> because they are afraid their package will be queried (and subsequently
> delayed) by the FTP masters if they left something out by mistake.

Hm.  copyright-format already says

	one or more free-form copyright statements.
[...]
	The Copyright field collects all relevant copyright notices
	for the files of this paragraph.

It doesn't say anything about listing authors.  It actually looks
pretty clear.

Maybe some ftp-master related documentation needs an update (e.g.,
perhaps the chain of links

	https://ftp-master.debian.org/
	-> REJECT-FAQ
	   -> "this mail" <87u09lawkj.fsf@vorlon.ganneff.de>

has been misleading people).  In that case, I suspect a fix to
bug#678607 (clarifying that there is no need for debian/copyright to
list who wrote each line of code) would help.  I don't think adding
extra fields would save people from this source of worry.

Thanks,
Jonathan