On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Russ Allbery<[email protected]> wrote: > Jonathan Yu <[email protected]> writes: > >> I realize DEP5 and all of that stuff regarding a machine-readable >> copyright isn't set yet. >> >> However, I've come across a case where tarballs contain files that >> have various copyrights, and I'm not sure how to represent them in >> d/copyright. >> >> For example, if an upstream module contains a Stuff.tar.gz, and that >> file itself contains stuff that is all under the same license, but has >> different copyright information. >> >> Assume Stuff.tar.gz contains files: >> foo.c >> bar.txt >> baz.c >> >> And foo.c is: Copyright 2005 Some Company A >> bar.txt is Copyright 2002 Some Person B >> baz.c is Copyright 2002-2007 Other Fictional Entity >> >> How would we represent such a case? Would we need to unpack that >> tarball and then reference the files appropriately? > > Well, from a Policy perspective, the answer is "write clear English text > explaining the situation and giving the license details." Policy is > mostly mum about whether you need to bother with the individual file > copyrights (as opposed to the collection copyright of the package) if > the license doesn't require you to, but it's probably easier right now > if you have that available to add it in. Indeed, I am aware that there is no official Policy decision on copyright formats yet. Right now we're using http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/CopyrightFormat?action=recall&rev=196 and waiting to see what comes out of DEP5. (I should have sent this to debian-devel instead, but I couldn't remember if DEP5 was using this list or debian-devel for their discussion) > > The question was previously raised on debian-devel I think about what to > do with this case from a DEP5 perspective. I personally have no idea. > I don't think a DEP5 copyright file provides a very good structure for > talking about this sort of distribution.
Unfortunately I think for now we're just going to do away with the problem by re-packing the module without those files (some other tarballs had to be removed because they didn't carry appropriate license & copyright information). I'm not sure if I was the person that previously brought up such a discussion on debian-devel; there is a good chance I participated in that discussion. I'll have to look through the archives. Thanks Russ. Cheers, Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
