On Tuesday 30 March 1999, at 0 h 24, the keyboard of Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Quite easy. Many upstream maintainers aren't aware that some Debian > people picked up their package and worked on them. As a rule, I *always* ask for permission of upstream authors. Even when the package is GPL and I don't really need the permission. That way, I'm sure the author actually read my message and processed it. If it does not reply, I insist, with exponential backoff. Until now, it always succeeded, even with biologists (which typically never include a licence in the tarball and do not show the slightest interest in legal matters). That way, they are informed there is a Debian package. I tell them about source packages and how to get the diff, too. It is not a legal obligation, but I think it is simply polite. And it's more efficient: it increases the probability that they inform me of new releases, that they direct to me Linux questions, etc.
