Russ Allbery <[email protected]> writes: > Ben Finney <[email protected]> writes: > > Russ Allbery <[email protected]> writes: > > >> So far as I can tell from the GPL 2 and GPL 3, Eduardo is correct > >> and the address portion is not part of the notices that the GPL > >> requires be maintained. > > > That's speak of what we are legally required to do by copyright > > law, which is not the point I'm questioning. What I'm asking about > > is what should be in ‘debian/copyright’. > > Why would those two things be different?
For the simple reason that copyright law doesn't require us to put *anything at all* in ‘debian/copyright’. What we put in there is dictated by Debian policy and other conventions, not copyright law. > What Policy says is: > > Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its > copyright and distribution license in the file > /usr/share/doc/package/copyright. This file must neither be > compressed nor be a symbolic link. > > [...] > > Packages distributed under the UCB BSD license, the Apache > license (version 2.0), the Artistic license, the GNU GPL > (version 2 or 3), the GNU LGPL (versions 2, 2.1, or 3), and the > GNU FDL (version 1.2) should refer to the corresponding files > under /usr/share/common-licenses, rather than quoting them in > the copyright file. > > This could definitely be clearer about what should be included in > the case of the common-licenses, but in the case of the GPL, the > bits required to comply with section 4 apart from the verbatim copy > of the license (which is what's handled by common-licenses) seem > like an obvious, common-sense interpretation: I don't see why we keep mixing up what Debian policy requires of us with what copyright law requires of us. The requirements of Debian's policy for the contents of ‘debian/copyright’ don't stem *only* from the absolute minimum imposed by copyright law (which is nothing at all). -- \ “One of the most important things you learn from the internet | `\ is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It's just an awful lot of | _o__) ‘us’.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
