Robert Connolly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Many of the patches we use are from other distributors, who don't
> specifically license their patches. The only way to know the license
> for sure is to get it from the original hacker or author, and this
> can be a painful thing to maintain.

This is the reason I assumed that authors generally mean patches to
fall under the same copyright as the package they patch.

> Many patches aren't worth copyrighting if they're doing trivial
> changes.. such as the gcc-specs patch. Aswell, anything patching GPL
> source will not need a copyright.

You mean that it won't need a license.  Every non-trivial work is by
default copyrighted.

> In order to add a new copyright, the new material needs to be unique
> and original, and most patches are not original or unique material.
> 
> I think its only sane to make sure new files have copyrights, not the patch 
> itself.

The example I gave earlier in this thread (the maketemp patch for
mktemp, creating a whole new file) is an example of a patch that is
non-trivial.

So I think the best thing will be to make sure that at least patches,
originating from LFS are attached with a "License" header.  It would
avoid misunderstandings, and wouldn't involve much work.

-- 
Henrik S. Hansen
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