Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
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 -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
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 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
Josselin Mouette j...@debian.org 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) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org 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. -- * Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology (T.P) * * PGP public key available @ http://www.iki.fi/killer * -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
Romain Beauxis to...@rastageeks.org 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. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
Kalle Kivimaa kil...@debian.org writes: Russ Allbery r...@debian.org 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.) -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
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). signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
Romain Beauxis to...@rastageeks.org 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. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Revising Policy 12.5 (Copyright information)
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
