Le Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 12:40:01PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog a écrit : > On Tue, 16 Jun 2009, Charles Plessy wrote: > > The dh_make template for debian/copyright induces many developers to put > > their > > packaging work under the GPL, and I have already seen packages whose > > license is > > otherwise BSD-ish with such patches. If the maintainer suddenly goes MIA and > > the patch is non-trivial, then in theory if we want to respect what is > > written, > > we are stuck with a GPL'ed patch. Therefore, we have an optional License > > field > > to make things crystal clear if necessary. > > I have no opposition against an optional License field. Can you try to word a > description for it? > > On the other side, I'm also not convinced it's really useful... if a patch > author wants some specific licence different from upstream's license, he > should make that explicit in the patch itself when he adds his own > copyright notice.
Hi Raphaël, if it is obvious for everybody that any patch for a given file is implicitely licensed under the same license as the file, then the License: field is not necessary. This of course makes people releasing some code under non-free terms when they prepare a patch for non-free packages for instance, which in case of a significant contribution could potentially be an obstacle to a relicensing to a free license if the patch is accepted upstream and author can not be reached later. But this is a corner case that can be resolved with a comment in the patch or by other means. At your option, here is nevertheless a description. License (optional): indicates the license under which the patch is released. Note that trivial works are anyway not copyrightable, and that in the vast majority of the cases it is expected that the patch is released under the same terms as the files it applies to. Nevertheless, you can use this field to clarify ambiguous situations, for instance when the license of the packaging work is not the same as the packaged program, or when you would like to give permission to the upstream copyright holder(s) to relicense the patched work later (in case the current license is problematic). PS: I also prefer Reviewed-by to Signed-off. Have a nice week-end, -- Charles Plessy Debian Med packaging team, http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
