Bug#975250: clarify gathering together of copyright information
On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 12:30:07PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Marc Haber <mh+debian-bugs@zugschlus.de> writes:
> > On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 01:58:51PM -0700, Sean Whitton wrote:
> >> On Fri 20 Nov 2020 at 03:23PM +01, Marc Haber wrote:
>
> >> > + <varname>Copyright</varname> field. It is ok to have years
> >> > + covered that are not listed in the original notices.
>
> >> I don't think we can assume it is okay to do this. You can combine
> >> 2009--2015 and 2020 into just 2009--2015, but I don't think we should
> >> encourage combining 2009--2011 and 2013 into 2009--2013.
>
> > That is what I assumed from the GNU wording quoted by Russ.
>
> The wording was used by upstream so the implication is that upstream is
> asserting copyright changes in each of those years. If we broaden that
> range, we're effectively adding copyright claims of additional years that
> aren't necessarily true. I have a hard time imagining that it would ever
> matter, but pedantically one cannot say 2009-2013 if no copyrightable
> changes happened in 2012.
... and the new copyright format was devised to trigger pedantery. I must add
that I absolutely hate the idea of spending more time with the copyright file
than with actual packaging (happened to me twice in the last month alone), but
technically that was alwas expected from us as DDs and if the project wants to
have us doing busy work, then so be it.
> The years are an annoying bit of pedantry. The short version is that US
> copyright law requires a year in the notice,
ok, that's a clear point.
Here is a new suggestion:
diff --git a/copyright-format-1.0.xml b/copyright-format-1.0.xml
index b8df359..12a84de 100644
--- a/copyright-format-1.0.xml
+++ b/copyright-format-1.0.xml
@@ -557,14 +557,24 @@ License: MPL-1.1
publication for one copyright holder may be gathered together. For
example, if file A has:
<programlisting>Copyright 2008 John Smith
-Copyright 2009 Angela Watts</programlisting>
+Copyright 2003,2009 Angela Watts</programlisting>
and file B has:
-<programlisting>Copyright 2010 Angela Watts</programlisting>
+<programlisting>Copyright 2005-2015 Angela Watts</programlisting>
a single paragraph may still be used for both files. The
<varname>Copyright</varname> field for that paragraph would
contain:
<programlisting>Copyright 2008 John Smith
-Copyright 2009, 2010 Angela Watts</programlisting>
+Copyright 2003,2005-2015 Angela Watts</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ It is important that all copyright years mentioned in the
+ copyright notice are covered in the coalesced
+ <varname>Copyright</varname> field. It is ok to have years
+ covered that are not listed in the original notices. You are
+ allowed to coalesce copyright statements from multiple files
+ into a single copyright notice as long as all of the listed
+ authors and years are covered (and no not listed years are
+ accidentaly included).
</para>
<para>
The <varname>Copyright</varname> field may contain the original
Greetings
Marc
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