Re: DEP-5 meta: New co-driver; current issues
Craig Small <csmall@debian.org> writes:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:09:44PM +1200, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
>> Files: *
>> Copyright: 2005-2006, Joe
>> 2006, Fred
> That means all files Fred worked on in 2006 and all files Joe worked on
> in 2005 and 2006? You'll get yourself tangled up into some horrible
> year X author matrix this way. I had a look at one of my packages, 400
> files with 50 different copyright combinations.
I think you're overthinking this. It's very common with copyright notices
to roll them up in this way and not worry too much about who has
copyrights on individual files. Upstreams do this all the time. If
someone wants the exact breakdown per file, the original files aren't
going anywhere.
At least in US law, the important thing about copyright notices is to
preserve all of them; it's not nearly as important to make sure they're
associated with only the relevant file. It's quite likely that, even at
the file level, Joe didn't work on the entire file and holds no copyright
interest on much of it.
> Maybe Files: * needs clarification. The difference between 'all' and
> 'any'.
We should say explicitly that the copyright field is a rollup of all
relevant copyright declarations for that group of files, yes.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Reply to: