Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Steve Langasek]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 07:34:17PM +0100, Romain Beauxis wrote:
> > (For example, up until I 
> > started experimenting with the new copyright file format, I never
> > documented the license or copyright information for any of the
> > Autotools-generated files, and I never heard a peep of concern about
> > that.)

> That's one of the grey corners. So far, my understanding is that they are not 
> listed because they are only in the source tarball, and also autogenerated. 
> The usual understanding seems that the licenses of these build scripts are 
> documented in the corresponding auto* package and that should be sufficient.

However, the exception for works only in the source tarball is not applied
consistently, even when pointed out to the ftp team that a given license is
not applicable to the binary packages.

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/07/msg00017.html

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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort]

Romain Beauxis wrote:
> Le Friday 20 March 2009 19:55:29 Emilio Pozuelo Monfort, vous avez écrit :
>>> Since the vast majority of the packages fall into a regular copyright and
>>> licensing, this would also mean overload the policy with stuff that is
>>> only relevant in a very small number of cases in proportion.
>> If copyright holder listing isn't needed at all, there's no special-casing
>> needed for autofoo stuff (wrt copyright listing, not wrt licenses though).
> 
> But this is also problematic for license ! 
> 
> Even in the case in which we accept my above rational, it is still possible 
> that the configure.ac contains custom macros with a bad license...
> 
> Hence, if we were to decide on a general basis, it would be either to check 
> for all configure.ac or for no one.. Do you think one of these possibilities 
> is reasonable ?

I dunno, but that is not the point. The point is about not requiring copyright
holders, which wouldn't need special casing.

Emilio



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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Romain Beauxis]

Le Friday 20 March 2009 19:55:29 Emilio Pozuelo Monfort, vous avez écrit :
> > Since the vast majority of the packages fall into a regular copyright and
> > licensing, this would also mean overload the policy with stuff that is
> > only relevant in a very small number of cases in proportion.
>
> If copyright holder listing isn't needed at all, there's no special-casing
> needed for autofoo stuff (wrt copyright listing, not wrt licenses though).

But this is also problematic for license ! 

Even in the case in which we accept my above rational, it is still possible 
that the configure.ac contains custom macros with a bad license...

Hence, if we were to decide on a general basis, it would be either to check 
for all configure.ac or for no one.. Do you think one of these possibilities 
is reasonable ?


Romain


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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Russ Allbery]

Romain Beauxis  writes:

> Sorry, but there was also an argument below in my message.
>
> The point is that there are possibly a lot of corner cases, such as the
> autotools case, for which we can't really decide and list every single
> issue or produce a general rational.
>
> Since the vast majority of the packages fall into a regular copyright
> and licensing, this would also mean overload the policy with stuff that
> is only relevant in a very small number of cases in proportion.

Oh, yes, I agree.  However, I think Policy should say what to do about
Autotools at least, since that's a very common case.

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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort]

Romain Beauxis wrote:
> Le Friday 20 March 2009 19:38:34 Russ Allbery, vous avez écrit :
>>> But do you think this is possible ?
>> Sure.  Resolving this sort of thing is the point of the Policy process,
>> after all, and we have a clear authority that does the enforcement
>> (ftp-master), so it seems likely that we can reach a clear policy that we
>> can document.
> 
> Sorry, but there was also an argument below in my message.
> 
> The point is that there are possibly a lot of corner cases, such as the 
> autotools case, for which we can't really decide and list every single issue 
> or produce a general rational.
> 
> Since the vast majority of the packages fall into a regular copyright and 
> licensing, this would also mean overload the policy with stuff that is only 
> relevant in a very small number of cases in proportion.

If copyright holder listing isn't needed at all, there's no special-casing
needed for autofoo stuff (wrt copyright listing, not wrt licenses though).



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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Romain Beauxis]

Le Friday 20 March 2009 19:38:34 Russ Allbery, vous avez écrit :
> > But do you think this is possible ?
>
> Sure.  Resolving this sort of thing is the point of the Policy process,
> after all, and we have a clear authority that does the enforcement
> (ftp-master), so it seems likely that we can reach a clear policy that we
> can document.

Sorry, but there was also an argument below in my message.

The point is that there are possibly a lot of corner cases, such as the 
autotools case, for which we can't really decide and list every single issue 
or produce a general rational.

Since the vast majority of the packages fall into a regular copyright and 
licensing, this would also mean overload the policy with stuff that is only 
relevant in a very small number of cases in proportion.


Romain


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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Russ Allbery]

Kalle Kivimaa  writes:
> Russ Allbery  writes:

>> started experimenting with the new copyright file format, I never
>> documented the license or copyright information for any of the
>> Autotools-generated files, and I never heard a peep of concern about
>> that.)

> Currently the ftpmasters don't require those copyrights to be listed
> in the debian/copyright.

I had a suspicion, but this is exactly the sort of thing that I'd like to
have written down somewhere.  (For example, I went and documented them
since I wasn't sure whether it was a good thing to do or not, and I
figured that while I was using the new copyright format, I should give it
a fair shake and try using it literally as written, and there's nothing in
it saying to skip those files.)

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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Russ Allbery]

Romain Beauxis  writes:
> Le Friday 20 March 2009 19:12:02 Russ Allbery, vous avez écrit :

>> Maybe the best resolution to this is to have a broader discussion that
>> leads to a rewording of Policy 12.5 that makes the requirements
>> explicit, with ftp-master buy-in on what the requirements are?   on the
>> same page and everyone will know what the requirements really are,
>> whereas right now there's a lot of grey area.  

> But do you think this is possible ?

Sure.  Resolving this sort of thing is the point of the Policy process,
after all, and we have a clear authority that does the enforcement
(ftp-master), so it seems likely that we can reach a clear policy that we
can document.

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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Kalle Kivimaa]

Russ Allbery  writes:
> started experimenting with the new copyright file format, I never
> documented the license or copyright information for any of the
> Autotools-generated files, and I never heard a peep of concern about
> that.)

Currently the ftpmasters don't require those copyrights to be listed
in the debian/copyright.

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Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Romain Beauxis]

Le Friday 20 March 2009 19:12:02 Russ Allbery, vous avez écrit :
> Maybe the best resolution to this is to have a broader discussion that
> leads to a rewording of Policy 12.5 that makes the requirements explicit,
> with ftp-master buy-in on what the requirements are?  
> on the same page and everyone will know what the requirements really are,
> whereas right now there's a lot of grey area.  

But do you think this is possible ?

> (For example, up until I 
> started experimenting with the new copyright file format, I never
> documented the license or copyright information for any of the
> Autotools-generated files, and I never heard a peep of concern about
> that.)

That's one of the grey corners. So far, my understanding is that they are not 
listed because they are only in the source tarball, and also autogenerated. 
The usual understanding seems that the licenses of these build scripts are 
documented in the corresponding auto* package and that should be sufficient.

As for myself, I don't think we can reach a strict consensus through the 
policy, but more likely have some sort of case law that is publicaly 
discussed and settled. 

Much like the reject FAQ, but where we discuss the motivations all together.


Romain


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Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)

[Russ Allbery]

Josselin Mouette  writes:
> Le vendredi 20 mars 2009 à 10:39 -0500, Manoj Srivastava a écrit :

>> I don't care for copyright notices, really. I care for license
>>  statements; and I take the upstream on trust that the license attached
>>  to the work is valid (since it is hard to determine every copyright
>>  holder -- people who have contributed more than, say, 10 lines of
>>  code, unless we trust the upstream to mention them).
>
> That is clearly the reasonable line to follow. However it has not been
> the line of FTP masters for at least a few months now.

Policy doesn't provide much guidance here.  Currently, you could read
Policy as saying that you have to reproduce all of the copyright notices
from the source (or read it several other ways; it's not very specific).
The requirements in the current REJECT FAQ are not in Policy and should be
if that's what we're enforcing.

Maybe the best resolution to this is to have a broader discussion that
leads to a rewording of Policy 12.5 that makes the requirements explicit,
with ftp-master buy-in on what the requirements are?  Then we can all be
on the same page and everyone will know what the requirements really are,
whereas right now there's a lot of grey area.  (For example, up until I
started experimenting with the new copyright file format, I never
documented the license or copyright information for any of the
Autotools-generated files, and I never heard a peep of concern about
that.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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