On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:54:17PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> writes: > > > Bart Martens <ba...@debian.org> writes: > > > > > That "authors" are not the same as "copyright holders" is simply a > > > fact regardless of what debian-policy states. For example, the > > > programmer who wrote some software can be the "author" and the > > > company the programmer was working for can be the "copyright > > > holder". > > > > This is the part I don't find this at all obvious. To me, it's the > > difference between referring to the collective entity or disassembling > > it into its constituent parts. […] > > In many cases, the programmer can be working for a company and yet not > properly considered to be a “constituent part” of that company. > > The most obvious example is a contract programmer coming in to do a > specific work; the programmer has an entirely different employer from > the organisation who hired them for the work. > > Another obvious example is where the copyright is later transferred to > another party; while this common action changes the work's copyright > holder, it would be false and misleading to say that it changes the > work's author. > > So the two are certainly distinct in many common cases. > > > It sounds like to you the word "author" implies an individual human > > being always, and isn't correct to use about a collective entity like > > a volunteer project, non-profit umbrella, or company. > > I see a different distinction being drawn, and I interpreted Bart as > drawing this one: the distinction between who *wrote* the work (the > author) versus who *currently holds copyright* in the work (the > copyright holder.
I confirm that this is what I meant, so you interpreted me correctly. > > That is, an organisation might hire a contract programmer to write the > ‘time’ program. The programmer is not a part of that organisation. The > programmer is the author; the organisation who hired them is (by > default, in many jurisdictions) the copyright holder. I'm not sure about "by default" here, but I agree that the organisation who hired the programmer can be the copyright holder. > > > I always assumed (and indeed still do believe) that the larger entity > > for which the programmers are either working or volunteering was a > > reasonable "author" for this purpose. > > So I agree with Bart that it's frequently and trivially incorrect to > equate “author” with “copyright holder”. > > > I don't believe that I'm doing this. :) The opinion I'm expressing > > here is exactly the opinion that I've applied in all of my own > > packaging, and which I had, prior to this thread, assumed was the > > interpretation that everyone held. > > On the other hand, I pretty much follow the practice Russ is advocating > here. I don't mind that Debian stops listing authors in debian/copyright. But that requires an update of debian-policy. > I think Policy is wrong to talk about “author” where it means > “copyright holder”, and I assume the intent is the latter and not the > former. Are we talking about the part "should name the original authors" ? Then I think that simply "authors" is meant, so I see no error in debian-policy here. > > > We're both on the same page about applying the same standards to > > sponsoring as one would generally apply to any other package in the > > archive; I think this is just a disagreement over what the existing > > Policy text means. Now that I've seen this thread, I can certainly see > > where it's unclear. > > Thank you for filing a bug report over this; though this ambiguity > bothered me, it never reached the threshold for me to file a report for > it. I don't see the ambiguity, but I don't object against clarifications, obviously. Regards, Bart Martens -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120623101316.gh32...@master.debian.org
