Re: Copyright assignement for Debian tools?
On Mon, February 11, 2013 14:54, Antonio Terceiro wrote:
> There are several cases where upstream explicitly puts "Copyright 2013 The
> Foo Developers" and similar statements. Are they invalid as well? If they
> are valid, wouldn't "Copyright 2013 Debian Project" have the similar (if
> not the same) meaning?
I do not think such claims are invalid: when there's a clear definition of
what "The Foo Developers" means (e.g., it's expanded in a central README
file), then its nothing more than a shorthand for the set of people
claiming copyright on the work. The actual, legal copyright is in the
hands of the people the string expands to.
In the case at hand, you could indeed add "Copyright 2013 Debian Project"
but because that doesn't expand to a clear set of legal rights holders, I
believe this would not have the desired effect, namely that a single legal
entity owns the copyright which then has the possibility to make decisions
on that copyright.
Cheers,
Thijs
Reply to: