On Fri, Mar 20 2009, Mike O'Connor wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 12:58:14AM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:
>> The real problem here is that FTP masters require the list of copyright
>> holders to be up-to-date each time the package goes through NEW.
>>
>> Whatever justification exists for this requirement, I???m starting to find
>> it unacceptable. If a package has to go through NEW, it takes about
>> twice as much time to update this list than to do the actual packaging
>> work.
>>
>> Why is this list needed?
>
> Often the license requires it. For instance the BSD license says,
> "Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright".
>
> To me, it seems like since one has to go through all of the source files
> anyway, creating a list of copyright holders while you are doing it is a
> trivial task. I don't see why making this list takes any time at all
> really. Unless you are not actually looking at the code you upload,
> which would worry me for other reasons as well.
I think it means what is says. The *ABOVE* copyright notice must
be reproduced. That does not mean you have to hunt down every person
with a Signed-Off-By header in the log, or every person who made an
more than 10 line (non-trivial) patch submission to the project (and
yes, most of these people also hold copyright -- how are you gonna find
out all such names?)
So, I just reproduce that copyright notice in the binary
package, which is all that one is required to do. I might also add
other obvious contributor names, if the appear in other files in the
package, but this is mostly the first time I package stuff. I might
miss names added or new files in a new version, though I try.
Frankly, at this point, I am not seeing a need to track down or
verify the completeness of my list of copyright holders, since it is
almost impossible to do so, or very time consuming, and I see limited
returns for time invested.
manoj
--
He who takes nothing in the world that has not been given him, long or
short, big or small, attractive or that is what I call a brahmin. 409
Manoj Srivastava <sriva...@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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