On 03/21/12 20:36, Jonathan Yu wrote: > Hi Mike, > > On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 9:00 PM, Mike Mestnik <che...@mikemestnik.net > <mailto:che...@mikemestnik.net>> wrote: > > I say one can easily split technical > and legal responsibility without the need for any gray lines. > > > While I am certainly not opposed to your idea in principle - that > everyone has something to contribute (including non-programmers) to > Debian's continued success - I think that for most packages, the > problem would be logistical. > > From my experience working with the Debian Perl Group as a contributor > but not a Debian Developer, our workflow works something like this: > > 1. An interested party commits desired changes with corresponding > debian/changelog updates to the team repository > > 2. The Package Entropy Tracker notices the change, and flags it as > Pending Upload > > 3. A Debian Developer reviews the package and provides sponsorship > (uploading the work on behalf of the original contributor) if > applicable, or requests further changes > > When it comes to copyright and licensing information, which is > typically a matter of looking through the accompanying documentation > and leaving appropriate notes in debian/copyright, it is typically a > small job that is done along with the rest of the packaging process. > One nice way of doing a quick spot check is using "grep -ir copyright > ." to find all instances of the word "copyright" in the source files. > Logistically, requiring developers to wait for an external party to > work on copyright information (which typically doesn't take too long > in my experience) would significantly slow down at least the Debian > Perl Group's ability to process and upload packages. > > When it comes to translations, which I think is an area that recieves > much more non-developer attention than debian/copyright files, the > logistical issue still arises - but since we don't all write all of > the languages in existence, we often have no choice but to seek the > assistance of interested parties. > > However, all that being said, I think that Debian can benefit from > interested parties assisting with copyright audits. We certainly have > a lot of metadata and a lot of code in the various Debian repositories > - but how accurately does that metadata (e.g. license and copyright > information) reflect the reality? > > Moreover, there are a lot of open bug reports where we are blocked on > an ITP due to incomplete or missing copyright/licensing information - > it would be nice to have more eyes to look over these bugs, forward > the information upstream where appropriate, and follow up on open bug > reports (unfortunately, of which, there are many). > > To sum up, the two places I see non-developer assistance being > beneficial to the Debian project (in the context of copyright and > licensing information) are: > > 1. Auditing of copyright/licensing information: ensure that the > metadata stored in debian/copyright is correct. This can be very > difficult to do as sometimes code is taken from other sources by > upstream developers without attribution. > This is where I'm stuck on my package not so much the specific issue of a lack of attribution, but the process of auditing the copyright/licensing information. Thanks to your input I now can see my path vary clearly.
I'll take a bit to reflect this re-wording and apply both of these suggestions to my recommended patch. Thank you! > 2. Following up on bugs related to copyright/licensing information: > for cases where an ITP/RFP has been filed, but where copyright > information is not clear from the source data, file a bug report with > the upstream developers, or alternatively, ping the upstream > developers in case the bug has been overlooked. Possibly spend some > time investigating alternative bug trackers that the upstream > developers may use instead, or their personal e-mail addresses. > > Cheers, > > Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f6a8dc7.7020...@mikemestnik.net
