Hi Russ, Quoting Russ Allbery (2026-02-02 20:36:26) > Jonas Smedegaard <[email protected]> writes: > > > Related to that, I now (since yesterday) add the following section to > > the debian/copyright file of packages that I maintain: > > > Files: debian/patches/* > > Copyright: None > > License: None > > Comment: > > Patches are generally assumed not copyright-protected by default. > > Please list any patch with copyright claims separately. > > So far as I understand current coypright case law, the first sentence is > factually incorrect as stated. I'm not sure that matters, since presumably > it should be read as a statement of your beliefs, and even if those > beliefs are not legally correct, they probably could be argued to > constitute some type of promissary estoppel against you ever making a > copyright claim for the content of the patches. But it does leave things > in a somewhat ambiguous place.
Ok, so my wording is bad. But I suspect that your understanding is off too. I could use some help with that. (thanks for your reflections on using weakest possible licensing for some purposes, that just doesn't seem to help here...) I do not mean to say "this section contains works of mine, that you should not assume being copyrightable, because I refuse to acknowledge authorship to avoid them needing licensing" - and I guess that's the reading that makes you consider it flat out incorrect. What I mean to say is, instead, "this section contains works that I cannot meaningfully state copyright and licensing for as a whole but also cannot meaningfully inherit from the superset of debian/* (and the superset of debian/* I cannot meaningfully omit because at least copyright is unlikely to be same for packaging as for upstream work), because each of the patches either a) is not copyrightable, or b) was cherry-picked upstream so potentially (but not necessarily) have same copyright and license as upstream project (i.e. not the nearest superset section of debian/* in the machine-readable inheritance logic, but topmost superset of *), or c) was created by the same authors as in the superset section of debian/* so potentially (but not necessarily) have same copyright and licensing as the packaging (which might be same as upstream but maybe not), or d) was created by others than both upstream and Debian packaging (e.g. contributed in a bugreport) so may have any license and certainly differing copyright". Even for packaging licensed same as upstream (i.e. putting aside for a moment the topic discussed in this thread), stating (implicitly or explicitly) that debian/patches/* have same copyright and license as the upstream project would still be wrong: At least copyright would differ for most patches, and is likely to differ among the patches. I tried to boil those 4 concerns into one short sentence. That failed, as your reply demonstrates, but I don't think that your response covers the concerns that I want to get across. I can see how my original question about *choosing* a packaging license and then shifting to talk about (copyright and) license of a subset of packaging could lead to you reading that as being about *choosing* a licensing for patches. My concerns regarding debian/copyright coverage for patche is how to be explicit about an ambiguity not introduced by my choice of packaging license but merely more strongly exposed when upstream and packaging licenses differ. There are two ways that I can meaningfully state that the Eiffel Tower is not for sale. Either I claim to know the owners and their opinions in the matter, or I claim to be the (sole) owner and it is my opinion. Similarly, license of assets in a Debian package can be described either because the license is referenced or it is chosen. The debian/copyright file lack that distinction: For some parts, copyright and license represent a reference from elsewhere, but for other parts they represent the source of truth on the matter. I use an unofficial field "Reference" to indicate the difference: Files: * Copyright: them License: TheseAreTheRules Reference: Comment: A Reference: field pointing elsewhere (or omitted) indicates that License and Copyright is referenced rather than introduced here. Files: debian/* Copyright: us License: ThusThouShallDo Reference: debian/copyright Comment: A Reference: field pointing to $self indicates that License and Copyright originates here - i.e. look no further, as this is the source of those statements. If some project (as has happened at least once) copies the debian/copyright file e.g. as contrib/copyright, then it automatically stops being the source of truth but instead hints at where to look for potentially more up-to-date information. Does that intent make sense now? Do you see how it arguably makes sense even when *not* strongly copyleft-licensing the packaging? I never *intended* to piss on the licensing choices made upstream, but it occured to me, from the strong reactions to my descriptions of my current practice, that it may be perceived that way. And that is the reason I now want to (not change but) make explicit the "default" state of debian/patches/* in debian/copyright: I want to clarify, that patches are not simply "same as above", both because "abocve" is ambiguous and because "same" is only rarely true (and different, depending on the ambuguous "above"). - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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