Steve Langasek <vor...@debian.org> writes: > On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 10:24:05AM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > > Policy §12.5, “Copyright information”, appears to be the complete > > set of direct normative statements of what's required: > > > 12.5. Copyright information > > --------------------------- > > > Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its > > copyright > > and distribution license in the file > > `/usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright'. This file must neither be > > compressed nor be a symbolic link. > > This is "(copyright) and (distribution license)", where "copyright" > should be understood as "copyright statement". > > It sounds like you may have been reading this as "(copyright and > distribution) license".
Yes. I don't see any other reading being consistent with the
commonly-held view [0] that Policy does *not* prescribe collecting and
duplicating copyright notices into the copyright file.
> It's an understandable mistake since the wording is ambiguous, but
> this interpretation is ruled out because "copyright license and
> distribution license" doesn't make sense as a pairing.
I think it does make sense. License to copy and license to distribute
can be discussed separately, so I don't see a problem with speaking
explicitly about both.
[0] Until discussions earlier this year, I did not hold that view, but
have since been convinced of it.
--
\ “We can't depend for the long run on distinguishing one |
`\ bitstream from another in order to figure out which rules |
_o__) apply.” —Eben Moglen, _Anarchism Triumphant_, 1999 |
Ben Finney
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