> > When I consider the hours and hours and hours it often takes to get the > > contents of debian/* into good shape for proper packaging, I think it is > > impossible to argue that so little effort is required, or that Debian > > packaging is such an obvious task, or that the results are just a set of > > default values that don’t represent any actual labor. That fact that > > Debian > > packaging done well requires so much effort, and that it takes so long for > > new > > packagers to become good at it, is a strong indication that it is > > copyrightable.
> That. If Debian package were so trivial, that it can't even be > copyrighted, we can go out and party instead. Packaging, which is a collection of metadata + code is IMHO as copyrightable as any other metadata + code, which overall "might be copyrightable" depending on how creative it is. E.g. if it is just some minor templated content: good luck trying to claim copyright later on it, be it packaging or even the underlying package content. From my PoV: the point of us often stating a copyright + license (since we AINL) is somewhat of adding a stake in the ground that in case the content would evolve into sufficiently unique and would be assessed to be copyrightable - here is the copyright and license to go along. It is not done when known ahead of time that copyright could not even be assessed (e.g. works of .gov) Cheers, -- Yaroslav O. Halchenko Center for Open Neuroscience http://centerforopenneuroscience.org Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755 WWW: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik
