Bug#566220: [PATCH] Clarify "verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license"
Steve Langasek
Version: 3.8.3.0
Tags: patch
User: debian...@packages.debian.org
Usertags: informative
Clarify what is meant by "verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution
license" to be explicit about what Debian has always required for this file,
to put to rest the silly arguments that this should be parsed as "(copyright
and distribution) license". If someone wants to argue that Policy should
*not* require reproducing the copyright notices when this is not required by
the license, let them argue that Policy should be changed rather than
wrongly claiming it's not a Policy requirement.
---
policy.sgml | 6 +++---
1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index 76ac0d4..aea4358 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -570,7 +570,7 @@
<p>
Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
- its copyright and distribution license in the file
+ its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
(see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
</p>
@@ -1639,7 +1639,7 @@
<heading>Copyright: <file>debian/copyright</file></heading>
<p>
Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
- its copyright and distribution license in the file
+ its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
(see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details). Also see
<ref id="pkgcopyright"> for further considerations related
@@ -9108,7 +9108,7 @@ END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
<p>
Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
- copyright and distribution license in the file
+ copyright notices and distribution license in the file
<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>. This
file must neither be compressed nor be a symbolic link.
</p>
--
1.6.5
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slan...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org
Russ Allbery
> Clarify what is meant by "verbatim copy of its copyright and
> distribution license" to be explicit about what Debian has always
> required for this file, to put to rest the silly arguments that this
> should be parsed as "(copyright and distribution) license". If someone
> wants to argue that Policy should *not* require reproducing the
> copyright notices when this is not required by the license, let them
> argue that Policy should be changed rather than wrongly claiming it's
> not a Policy requirement.
Agreed and seconded. I actually lean towards dropping this requirement in
the long run as part of a larger discussion except where the license
requires it (which is most cases, but anyway), but what you have below is
clearly what's being required right now, so while we have the larger
discussion, we should document the current state.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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Russ Allbery
> Steve Langasek <steve.l...@canonical.com> writes:
>> If someone wants to argue that Policy should *not* require reproducing
>> the copyright notices when this is not required by the license, let
>> them argue that Policy should be changed rather than wrongly claiming
>> it's not a Policy requirement.
> When raising the issue here in the past, I've been told (most recently,
> by Russ) to discuss it on debian-devel first, to get the position of the
> ftpmasters, before asking for such a change.
Which, if I recall correctly, I said in the context of pointing out that
your interpretation of Policy that you just posted to debian-devel is
clearly not what's currently required, nor what has historically been
expected in debian/copyright.
> Please, don't try to short-circuit the discussion that's been requested.
We should correctly document the current situation regardless, even if
we're discussing whether to change it, since having the current wording be
ambiguous isn't helping anyone. The only reason to not document the
current situation is if we expect the current situation to change very
soon, and I don't see any sign that this change is going to happen quickly
(given the complete lack of movement on it since the last time it came
up).
Julien Cristau
> Package: debian-policy
> Version: 3.8.3.0
> Tags: patch
> User: debian...@packages.debian.org
> Usertags: informative
>
> Clarify what is meant by "verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution
> license" to be explicit about what Debian has always required for this file,
> to put to rest the silly arguments that this should be parsed as "(copyright
> and distribution) license". If someone wants to argue that Policy should
> *not* require reproducing the copyright notices when this is not required by
> the license, let them argue that Policy should be changed rather than
> wrongly claiming it's not a Policy requirement.
Seconded.
Cheers,
Julien
Jonathan Nieder
Steve Langasek wrote:
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -570,7 +570,7 @@
>
> <p>
> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> - its copyright and distribution license in the file
> + its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
> <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
> (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
> </p>
For what it’s worth, I have not noticed a wide consensus for this
reading. It can be nice to have all notices in one place for a
variety of reasons (for example as evidence that the package
maintainer took them into account), but in all but the smallest of
packages, maintainers do not do that, nor do they seem to think it
would be desirable.
Is it intended that the linux-image-* packages, for example, include a
verbatim copy of all the copyright notices from Linux source files?
Instead, I have always read that passage to mean
Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
its copyright information and distribution license in
the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.
For the Linux kernel, a copy of COPYING would be sufficient, if it
adequately described the copyright situation (and of course it
doesn’t, but that’s a separate issue).
I agree with the goal of making clear whatever reading is
historically correct. Would s/notices/information/ do that?
Jonathan
Russ Allbery
> Steve Langasek wrote:
>> --- a/policy.sgml
>> +++ b/policy.sgml
>> @@ -570,7 +570,7 @@
>>
>> <p>
>> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
>> - its copyright and distribution license in the file
>> + its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
>> <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
>> (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
>> </p>
> For what it’s worth, I have not noticed a wide consensus for this
> reading. It can be nice to have all notices in one place for a
> variety of reasons (for example as evidence that the package
> maintainer took them into account), but in all but the smallest of
> packages, maintainers do not do that, nor do they seem to think it
> would be desirable.
> Is it intended that the linux-image-* packages, for example, include a
> verbatim copy of all the copyright notices from Linux source files?
> Instead, I have always read that passage to mean
> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> its copyright information and distribution license in
> the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.
I think this is a better wording for the existing situation. However...
> For the Linux kernel, a copy of COPYING would be sufficient, if it
> adequately described the copyright situation (and of course it
> doesn’t, but that’s a separate issue).
...exactly. One would still, by what Policy has historically said, need
to find and accumulate the copyright notices if upstream hasn't already
done that. Saying copyright information instead of copyright notices does
reflect the fact that as long as the information is there, it doesn't
matter if it has exactly the same formatting.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
--
Steve M. Robbins
I'd have to agree with Jonathan Nieder and Charles Plessy that the
proposed change does not reflect current consensus.
On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 11:50:25AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com> writes:
> >> --- a/policy.sgml
> >> +++ b/policy.sgml
> >> @@ -570,7 +570,7 @@
> >>
> >> <p>
> >> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> >> - its copyright and distribution license in the file
> >> + its copyright notices and distribution license in the file
> >> <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
> >> (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
> >> </p>
>
> > For what it???s worth, I have not noticed a wide consensus for this
> > reading. It can be nice to have all notices in one place for a
> > variety of reasons (for example as evidence that the package
> > maintainer took them into account), but in all but the smallest of
> > packages, maintainers do not do that, nor do they seem to think it
> > would be desirable.
Agreed. The license for using and distributing the files in the
BINARY package is useful and necessary. But I can't imagine that many
binary package users would need the hundreds of copyright statements
from multi-author works like the kernel, gcc, libc, etc. A summary
should be fine and for those who really want the details the source
package exists.
I'm reasonably sure that this is the current consensus view, as
evidenced by the existing copyright files.
> > Instead, I have always read that passage to mean
>
> > Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> > its copyright information and distribution license in
> > the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.
>
> I think this is a better wording for the existing situation. However...
I was under the impression that Policy is more descriptive (of
existing practices) than prescriptive. For example, I believe that
archive-wide changes generally must achieve consensus by having the
changes done, tested, etc, before being enshrined in policy.
In this light, I don't understand the motivation for "clarifying"
the policy to something that manifestly we're not following.
I'd suggest instead to clarify to the current policy on the ground.
Regards,
-Steve
Ben Finney
> I'd have to agree with Jonathan Nieder and Charles Plessy that the
> proposed change does not reflect current consensus.
That's my impression too.
> On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 11:50:25AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com> writes:
> > > Instead, I have always read that passage to mean
> >
> > > Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> > > its copyright information and distribution license in
> > > the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.
> >
> > I think this is a better wording for the existing situation.
> > However...
>
> I was under the impression that Policy is more descriptive (of
> existing practices) than prescriptive.
There is an additional factor here. Reportedly, the ftpmasters have a
policy that all Debian packages must have all copyright notices for the
package duplicated in the package's ‘copyright’ file.
Common wisdom appears to be that the ftpmasters are the most directly
attributable for distribution of works via the Debian project, so they
are the ones most directly taking legal risk in the event that a package
is not properly licensed. On that basis their opinion on the matter is
deemed to overrule consensus opinion of the Debian project.
The ftpmasters have been remarkably silent in the face of requests
<URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/01/msg00443.html>
<URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/01/msg00443.html> for
clarification of how this policy is compatible with the observed fact of
a dearth of such all-copyright-notices duplication in the actual Debian
packages.
So the situation we end up with is that there are two contradictory
“existing practices” to document in Debian policy: the actual practice
embodied in Debian packages, and the actual policy expressed by
ftpmasters.
> In this light, I don't understand the motivation for "clarifying"
> the policy to something that manifestly we're not following.
>
> I'd suggest instead to clarify to the current policy on the ground.
I want this also.
Would it make sense to document the above contradiction in some form? I
recognise that it may not be best to have “current affairs” reports in
the policy document, but I also don't see that it makes sense to
document as fact a requirement that is so frequently breached.
--
\ “I'm a born-again atheist.” —Gore Vidal |
`\ |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <b...@benfinney.id.au>
Ben Finney
> <URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/01/msg00443.html>
> <URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/01/msg00443.html>
The first link should have been
<URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/08/msg00963.html>.
--
\ “If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd |
`\ better not start writing it.” —Edsger W. Dijkstra |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <b...@benfinney.id.au>
Steve M. Robbins
> There is an additional factor here. Reportedly, the ftpmasters have a
> policy that all Debian packages must have all copyright notices for the
> package duplicated in the package's ???copyright??? file.
Agreed, the ftpmasters have a larger role than most of us in
interpreting this policy.
However, I don't believe they unanimously interpret policy as you suggest
as we manifestly have copyright files that simply summarize copyright
statements rather than duplicate them verbatim. Rather, I presume
there is a mix of opinions on the ftpmaster team as there is in
Debian as a whole.
Regards,
-Steve
Ben Finney
> On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 09:16:29AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
>
> > There is an additional factor here. Reportedly, the ftpmasters have
> > a policy that all Debian packages must have all copyright notices
> > for the package duplicated in the package's ???copyright??? file.
>
> Agreed, the ftpmasters have a larger role than most of us in
> interpreting this policy.
By “the ftpmasters have a policy” I'm referring not to Debian's
packaging policy document, but specifically to a *distinct* policy that
the ftpmasters have expressed for how packages are accepted or rejected
for Debian.
That it's not called a policy doesn't stop it from being one. See
<URL:http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html>, which in regard to
this current discussion links to a 2006 message from an FTP Master:
Your debian/copyright file must contain the following information:
- The author(s) name
- The year(s) of the copyright
- The used license(s)
- The URL to the upstream source
In many packages there is more than one author, more than one
copyright-holder and more than one license. Do not miss to list them
all, even if that other license is just for one file. Yes, any single
file is important.
<URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00023.html>
As you noted, that is an aspect of expressed FTP Master policy that is
in contradiction to the current practice of the Debian project. The
question I'm raising is which should we describe in the Debian policy
document: current consensus practice, or FTP Master edict?
--
\ “It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that |
`\ counts.” —Will Rogers |
Jonathan Nieder
Just wanted to clarify a few points from your message, out of order.
No patch is attached to this message. I will probably download the
policy sources and write one soon, if no one beats me to it.
First a point you made towards the end:
Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 11:50:25AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> I think this is a better wording for the existing situation. However...
[One would still, by what Policy has historically said, need to find
and accumulate the copyright notices if upstream hasn't already done
that.]
> I was under the impression that Policy is more descriptive (of
> existing practices) than prescriptive. For example, I believe that
> archive-wide changes generally must achieve consensus by having the
> changes done, tested, etc, before being enshrined in policy.
I think your impression is mistaken here. Part of making good policy
involves allowing for the kind of experimentation you talk about
where possible. Still, the policy is AFAICT meant to be prescriptive,
and making changes within Debian that are forbidden by policy without
changing the policy is considered a serious bug.
Just because many copyright files, package descriptions, and
debian/control files are inadequate (and they are!) does not mean that
the policy should not require otherwise.
> Agreed. The license for using and distributing the files in the
> BINARY package is useful and necessary.
I don’t think the distinction you imply has precedent in Debian.
Including authorship information in debian/copyright for source
packages is IMHO useful to distributors and a matter of basic respect
to the authors.
> But I can't imagine that many
> binary package users would need the hundreds of copyright statements
> from multi-author works like the kernel, gcc, libc, etc. A summary
> should be fine and for those who really want the details the source
> package exists.
GCC, though a multi-author work, has only one copyright holder AFAIK.
glibc has very few.
Just to be clear, I would like to emphasize that I do not think a
summary of the license information is fine at all. On the other hand,
as you say, summary information about the copyright holders seems
appropriate, but it is not part of the scope of this bug, which is
about clarifying that the current policy really does require copyright
information in the debian/copyright file.
> In this light, I don't understand the motivation for "clarifying"
> the policy to something that manifestly we're not following.
>
> I'd suggest instead to clarify to the current policy on the ground.
A change that explains such points as:
- Copyright information for the license documents themselves can be
omitted;
- Similarly, copyright and license information for autotools-
generated files is generally not included;
- Copyright notices are generally not copied verbatim: the copyright
symbol is often changed, multiple notices combined and the years
sorted into a single list, and so on.
- Copyright for files written as part of a large multi-author work
is often summarized by “Copyright © <dates>, <original author> and
many others”.
would be welcome, but I do not think it is in scope for this bug.
Instead, first let’s make it clear that
1. Copyright information in debian/copyright _is_ currently required
by policy.
2. Verbatim copies of all copyright notices are not.
That done, we would be better prepared to discuss larger changes...
Let me consider again the other multi-author example. I mentioned
before that the current linux-2.6 copyright file is inadequate. The
upstream COPYING file says:
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
and goes on to explain that Linux can be distributed under the terms
of the GPL, version 2. One could summarize this by:
Copyright:
Copyright © 1991-2010 Linus Torvalds
and many others
License:
This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
published by the Free Software Foundation.
plus further information about where to find the GPL-2 on Debian
systems, and maybe a note about the lack of warranty.
And yes, those who really want full details can look at the source.
But there is a problem: that license does not actually apply to the
entire kernel source:
- some files use some other license (GPL-2+, LGPL, BSD-like licenses,
X11-style licenses, GFDL)
- some files upstream used licenses not acceptable for Debian and have
been removed from the repacked source package
To write a useful copyright file, the package maintainers really would
need to look over the copyright notices throughout the kernel. A
naive summary is not enough. On the other hand, dumping the output of
“git grep '[Cc]opyright|MODULE_LICENSE'” into debian/copyright would
benefit no one. So what should they do?
Jonathan
Steve Langasek
> Instead, I have always read that passage to mean
> Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> its copyright information and distribution license in
> the file /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright.
I agree that "copyright information" vs. "copyright notices" is reasonable,
and there's no clear precedent in policy or the archive for preferring the
former interpretation over the latter. So I'd be happy to second your
proposed text over my own.
Thanks,
Steve Langasek
> Agreed. The license for using and distributing the files in the
> BINARY package is useful and necessary. But I can't imagine that many
> binary package users would need the hundreds of copyright statements
> from multi-author works like the kernel, gcc, libc, etc. A summary
> should be fine and for those who really want the details the source
> package exists.
Except that the examples you cite are all packages distributed under the GPL
or the LGPL, and their *license* requires that we reproduce the copyright
statements[1].
> In this light, I don't understand the motivation for "clarifying"
> the policy to something that manifestly we're not following.
The motivation is to put an end to the contrafactual interpretation of this
clause in Policy that Ben Finney continues to advance in discussions on
Debian mailing lists.
I'm not claiming that there's consensus about what the policy for
debian/copyright *should* be, I'm saying that there's consensus about what
the current Policy text *means* - at least insofar as it excludes Ben's
revisionist interpretation that "copyright and distribution license" is only
meant to refer to a license.
It's clear that our compliance with this bit of Policy is poor, and it's
also clear that there's disagreement about whether it should even be
enforced, so that's a conversation that the Project should have - but claims
that it never meant copyright notices were supposed to be included in the
first place only muddle the discussion.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slan...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org
[1] GPLv2, §3: "You may copy and distribute the Program in object code under
the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above [...]"; §1: "You may copy and distribute
[...] provided that you [...] conspicuously and appropriately publish on
each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty"
Steve Langasek
> That it's not called a policy doesn't stop it from being one. See
> <URL:http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html>, which in regard to
> this current discussion links to a 2006 message from an FTP Master:
It links to a 2006 message from an ftp *assistant* who is now an ftp master.
Lack of dissent at the time is merely an indication that it was a
non-binding statement from a single member of the ftp team, not that the
Project agreed with it (or that the ftp team has the authority to
unilaterally impose new archive acceptance requirements).
> Your debian/copyright file must contain the following information:
>
> - The author(s) name
This, in particular, diverges from the requirements of Debian Policy, the
major free software licenses, and copyright law. Author != Copyright
holder.
> As you noted, that is an aspect of expressed FTP Master policy that is
> in contradiction to the current practice of the Debian project. The
> question I'm raising is which should we describe in the Debian policy
> document: current consensus practice, or FTP Master edict?
Assuming by "current consensus practice" you mean the copyright files that
fail to satisfy the GPL requirements to reproduce copyright statements,
then: neither.
Jonathan Nieder
in debian/copyright. Claims that the policy never meant
copyright notices were supposed to be included in the first place
only muddle the discussion.
This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices”
because as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if
it has exactly the same formatting. For example, combining the
dates from multiple copyright notices is a common practice.
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com>
---
Steve Langasek wrote:
> I agree that "copyright information" vs. "copyright notices" is reasonable,
> and there's no clear precedent in policy or the archive for preferring the
> former interpretation over the latter. So I'd be happy to second your
> proposed text over my own.
Thanks. Okay, here goes.
policy.sgml | 10 +++++-----
1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index 76ac0d4..ea3ed35 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -569,8 +569,8 @@
<heading>Copyright considerations</heading>
<p>
- Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
- its copyright and distribution license in the file
+ Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
+ copyright information and distribution license in the file
<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
(see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
</p>
@@ -1638,8 +1638,8 @@
<sect id="dpkgcopyright">
<heading>Copyright: <file>debian/copyright</file></heading>
<p>
- Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
- its copyright and distribution license in the file
+ Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
+ copyright information and distribution license in the file
<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
(see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details). Also see
<ref id="pkgcopyright"> for further considerations related
@@ -9108,7 +9108,7 @@ END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
<p>
Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
- copyright and distribution license in the file
+ copyright information and distribution license in the file
<file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>. This
file must neither be compressed nor be a symbolic link.
</p>
--
1.7.0.rc1
Charles Plessy
> Packages must include a […] lack-of-copyright statement
> in debian/copyright.
Hi Jonathan,
That sounds new to me. Where is it requested that works in the public domain
must be documented as such in debian/copyright ?
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
Steve M. Robbins
> On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 11:49:03AM -0600, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> > Agreed. The license for using and distributing the files in the
> > BINARY package is useful and necessary. But I can't imagine that many
> > binary package users would need the hundreds of copyright statements
> > from multi-author works like the kernel, gcc, libc, etc. A summary
> > should be fine and for those who really want the details the source
> > package exists.
>
> Except that the examples you cite are all packages distributed under the GPL
> or the LGPL, and their *license* requires that we reproduce the copyright
> statements[1].
> [1] GPLv2, ?3: "You may copy and distribute the Program in object code under
> the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above [...]"; ?1: "You may copy and distribute
> [...] provided that you [...] conspicuously and appropriately publish on
> each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty"
Notice that this text says "appropriate", not "verbatim". One might
claim that
Copyright:
Copyright (C) 1991-2009 Linus Torvalds
and many others
is "appropriate" for the linux kernel. Indeed, this is what I find in
/usr/share/doc/linux-image-2.6.32-trunk-amd64/copyright
> > In this light, I don't understand the motivation for "clarifying"
> > the policy to something that manifestly we're not following.
>
> The motivation is to put an end to the contrafactual interpretation of this
> clause in Policy that Ben Finney continues to advance in discussions on
> Debian mailing lists.
Really? The change is aimed to silence one opinion? I'm surprised.
> I'm not claiming that there's consensus about what the policy for
> debian/copyright *should* be, I'm saying that there's consensus about what
> the current Policy text *means* - at least insofar as it excludes Ben's
> revisionist interpretation that "copyright and distribution license" is only
> meant to refer to a license.
>
> It's clear that our compliance with this bit of Policy is poor, and it's
> also clear that there's disagreement about whether it should even be
> enforced, so that's a conversation that the Project should have - but claims
> that it never meant copyright notices were supposed to be included in the
> first place only muddle the discussion.
I do understand your point. I accept that there are members of Debian
who subscribe to your interpretation. It may well be that the
original Policy writers also subscribed to your interpretation. I've
only been part of Debian for 9 years, so the discussions around the
policy pre-date me.
However, I maintain that a Policy interpretation that is not enforced
and not widely subscribed to is not really the Policy.
Regards,
-Steve
Jonathan Nieder
Claims that the policy never meant copyright notices were
supposed to be included in debian/copyright in the first place
only muddle the discussion.
This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices”
because as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if
it has exactly the same formatting. For example, combining the
dates from multiple copyright notices is a common practice.
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com>
---
Hi Charles,
Charles Plessy wrote:
> Le Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 09:33:29PM -0600, Jonathan Nieder a écrit :
> > Packages must include a […] lack-of-copyright statement
> > in debian/copyright.
>
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> That sounds new to me.
Good catch; removed.
> Where is it requested that works in the public domain
> must be documented as such in debian/copyright ?
Nowhere I know of. But it is not a new idea: see for example
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ubuntu.motu/740/focus=742
Note that I did not think that every small work in the public domain
included in a package must be documented. I had only assumed that if
the package is in the public domain, the policy was that that is
supposed to be documented in debian/copyright (to at least put the
reader at ease).
Kind regards,
Jonathan
Jonathan Nieder
> On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 06:59:06PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
>> The motivation is to put an end to the contrafactual interpretation of this
>> clause in Policy that Ben Finney continues to advance in discussions on
>> Debian mailing lists.
>
> Really? The change is aimed to silence one opinion? I'm surprised.
Lest I be accused of trying to suppress an opinion:
The point is to document consensus (if it exists) that would clear up
an ambiguity Ben Finney pointed out. Doesn’t sound so bad to me.
> I do understand your point. I accept that there are members of Debian
> who subscribe to your interpretation. It may well be that the
> original Policy writers also subscribed to your interpretation. I've
> only been part of Debian for 9 years, so the discussions around the
> policy pre-date me.
>
> However, I maintain that a Policy interpretation that is not enforced
> and not widely subscribed to is not really the Policy.
If you are saying debian/copyright is not supposed to contain copyright
information, please explain more so we can understand better.
Otherwise, please file a new bug; and note that it has already been
mentioned by several people that this part of policy seems to need
changing.
The simplest way to get this done I can think of is to make the
appropriate changes bit by bit. I am interested in this particular
bug because it establishes a baseline.
Jonathan
Steve M. Robbins
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 11:23:35PM -0600, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 06:59:06PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
>
> >> The motivation is to put an end to the contrafactual interpretation of this
> >> clause in Policy that Ben Finney continues to advance in discussions on
> >> Debian mailing lists.
> >
> > Really? The change is aimed to silence one opinion? I'm surprised.
I'd like to retract that snide remark. I should not have cast
aspersions on Steve L's motivations and I apologize for this.
> > I do understand your point. I accept that there are members of Debian
> > who subscribe to your interpretation. It may well be that the
> > original Policy writers also subscribed to your interpretation. I've
> > only been part of Debian for 9 years, so the discussions around the
> > policy pre-date me.
> >
> > However, I maintain that a Policy interpretation that is not enforced
> > and not widely subscribed to is not really the Policy.
>
> If you are saying debian/copyright is not supposed to contain copyright
> information, please explain more so we can understand better.
In my mind, debian/copyright should contain the license and a
reasonable summary of the copyright. I don't believe it is useful or
reasonable to reproduce verbatim the copyright statements of dozens of
authors found in thousands of files.
Further, what I'm saying is that this appears to me to be a widespread
practice in Debian over the years.
> The simplest way to get this done I can think of is to make the
> appropriate changes bit by bit. I am interested in this particular
> bug because it establishes a baseline.
I have no quarrel with that approach. I guess the question is: do you
make the change to document the policy-as-conceived or the de-facto
policy?
Cheers,
-Steve
gregor herrmann
> ... how this policy is compatible with the observed fact of
> a dearth of such all-copyright-notices duplication in the actual Debian
> packages.
I seems you are looking at other packages than me; I know quite a few
which follow the ftp-masters' interpration of policy.
> So the situation we end up with is that there are two contradictory
> “existing practices” to document in Debian policy: the actual practice
> embodied in Debian packages, and the actual policy expressed by
> ftpmasters.
Ehrm, just because we have incomplete debian/copyright files doesn't
mean there's a consensus or an accepted practice that they are
correct.
Cheers,
gregor
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`- BOFH excuse #315: The recent proliferation of Nuclear Testing
Steve Langasek
> Packages must include a copyright or lack-of-copyright statement
> in debian/copyright. Claims that the policy never meant
> copyright notices were supposed to be included in the first place
> only muddle the discussion.
> This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices”
> because as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if
> it has exactly the same formatting. For example, combining the
> dates from multiple copyright notices is a common practice.
> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com>
> ---
> Steve Langasek wrote:
>
> > I agree that "copyright information" vs. "copyright notices" is reasonable,
> > and there's no clear precedent in policy or the archive for preferring the
> > former interpretation over the latter. So I'd be happy to second your
> > proposed text over my own.
> Thanks. Okay, here goes.
Seconded.
Julien Cristau
> Packages must include a copyright or lack-of-copyright statement
> in debian/copyright. Claims that the policy never meant
> copyright notices were supposed to be included in the first place
> only muddle the discussion.
>
> This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices”
> because as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if
> it has exactly the same formatting. For example, combining the
> dates from multiple copyright notices is a common practice.
>
> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com>
Seconded.
Cheers,
Julien
gregor herrmann
> From: Steve Langasek <steve.l...@canonical.com>
>
> Claims that the policy never meant copyright notices were
> supposed to be included in debian/copyright in the first place
> only muddle the discussion.
>
> This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices”
> because as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if
> it has exactly the same formatting. For example, combining the
> dates from multiple copyright notices is a common practice.
>
> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrni...@gmail.com>
> ---
[..]
Seconded.
Jonathan Nieder
usertags 566220 + seconded
thanks
Hi,
Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -569,8 +569,8 @@
> <heading>Copyright considerations</heading>
>
> <p>
> - Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
> - its copyright and distribution license in the file
> + Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
> + copyright information and distribution license in the file
> <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
> (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
> </p>
[etc]
I see seconds by
Steve Langasek <vor...@debian.org> (message #137)
Thijs Kinkhorst <th...@debian.org> (message #142)
Julien Cristau <jcri...@debian.org> (message #147)
gregor herrmann <gre...@debian.org> (message #152)
Some of the discussion was derailed by my overreaching commit message.
I think it’s worth scratching that and just saying the relevant things.
Be explicit about the need for copyright statements in debian/copyright, to
clear up an ambiguity pointed out by Ben Finney.
This says “copyright information” instead of “copyright notices” to reflect
the fact that as long as the information is there, it doesn’t matter if it
has exactly the same formatting. For example, combining the dates from
multiple copyright notices is a common practice.
What is the next step?
Jonathan
Bill Allombert
> user debian...@packages.debian.org
> usertags 566220 + seconded
> thanks
>
> Hi,
>
>
> Steve Langasek <vor...@debian.org> (message #137)
> Thijs Kinkhorst <th...@debian.org> (message #142)
> Julien Cristau <jcri...@debian.org> (message #147)
> gregor herrmann <gre...@debian.org> (message #152)
>
Well, I have created a git branch 'bug566220-ballombe' with your
changes. Any objection I commit it by the other policy editors ?
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ball...@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
Russ Allbery
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 06:19:26PM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
>> I see seconds by
>>
>> Steve Langasek <vor...@debian.org> (message #137)
>> Thijs Kinkhorst <th...@debian.org> (message #142)
>> Julien Cristau <jcri...@debian.org> (message #147)
>> gregor herrmann <gre...@debian.org> (message #152)
>>
>> What is the next step?
> Well, I have created a git branch 'bug566220-ballombe' with your
> changes. Any objection I commit it by the other policy editors ?
Looks good to me; please merge. (Although I'd prefer it if you'd add the
e-mail addresses to the Seconded lines in the changelog as well.)
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
--
Bill Allombert
> Bill Allombert <Bill.Al...@math.u-bordeaux1.fr> writes:
> > On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 06:19:26PM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
>
> >> I see seconds by
> >>
> >> Steve Langasek <vor...@debian.org> (message #137)
> >> Thijs Kinkhorst <th...@debian.org> (message #142)
> >> Julien Cristau <jcri...@debian.org> (message #147)
> >> gregor herrmann <gre...@debian.org> (message #152)
> >>
> >> What is the next step?
>
> > Well, I have created a git branch 'bug566220-ballombe' with your
> > changes. Any objection I commit it by the other policy editors ?
>
> Looks good to me; please merge. (Although I'd prefer it if you'd add the
> e-mail addresses to the Seconded lines in the changelog as well.)
Done.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ball...@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
--