Re: Missing copyright clause of debian directory

Soren Stoutner <[email protected]> Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:48:20 -0700
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.legal
Organization	Debian
Message-ID	<1971568.xz1zaOfMJJ@soren-desktop>
As an additional followup, as the original debian/* files were licensed GPLv2+, 
if you edit a file you can choose to make your contribution GPLv3+, which would 
convert the entire file to GPLv3+.  If you end up editing all of the files in 
debian/* at least once, you could convert the entire copyright entry to 
GPLv3+.

I can’t do that with Electrum because there is no automatic conversion from 
GPLv3+ to Expat.  But it is an option that is open to you if you would like to 
pursue it.  It also isn’t a problem if you decide to leave all your 
contributions to debian/* as GPLv2+, as any GPLv2+ file can be contributed to 
an upstream GPLv3+ project (that’s the beauty of using GPLv2+ instead of 
GPLv2: it can be converted to later versions with any additional permission 
from the copyright holders).

On Friday, April 12, 2024 12:40:55 PM MST Soren Stoutner wrote:
> As an additional comment, I currently maintain Electrum.  Upstream is 
licensed
> Expat. Previous maintainers licensed their debian/* contributions GPLv3+. 
> When I took over the package, I started working closely with upstream and
> wanted to contribute patches and other files, like AppSream metainfo to them.
> 
> To do this, I wanted all of my new contributions to debian/* to be licensed
> under Expat when I was the sole author of the file, and dual licensed under
> GPLv3+ and Expat when I was editing an existing file.  I indicated that in
> the following way:
> 
> Files:     debian/*
> Copyright: 2013-2015 Vasudev Kamath <[email protected]>
>            2013 Gregor Herrmann <[email protected]>
>            2013-2021 Tristan Seligmann <[email protected]>
>            2019-2020 Laurent Bigonville <[email protected]>
>            2022 Bastian Germann <[email protected]>
>            2022-2024 Soren Stoutner <[email protected]>
> License:   GPL-3+
> Comment:
>  The following copyright holders additionally license their
>  contributions to debian/* under the Expat license so that
>  if all other listed contributors agree it can be relicensed
>  under Expat, which is the license used by upstream and makes it
>  easier for contributions to be upstreamed when appropriate:
>  Soren Stoutner, Bastian Germann.
> 
> Files:     debian/electrum.1
> Copyright: 2023-2024 Soren Stoutner <[email protected]>
> License:   Expat
> 
> Files:     debian/patches/*
> Copyright: 2022-2024 Soren Stoutner <[email protected]>
> License:   Expat
> 
> Files:     debian/patches/Improve-message-about-PyQt5.patch
> Copyright: 2020 Tristan Seligmann <[email protected]>
> License:   GPL-3+
> 
> https://sources.debian.org/src/electrum/4.5.4%2Bdfsg-1/debian/copyright/[1]
> 
> On Friday, April 12, 2024 12:10:43 PM MST Richard Laager wrote:
> > I've only looked at this situation for a total of five minutes prior to
> > writing this email, so take this with a grain of salt. But to help you
> > make forward progress...
> > 
> > Upstream seems to use GPL-3+ (not GPL-3). For example:
> > https://github.com/fxbois/web-mode/blob/
a9d21841224da3295f2dd0a90022f5e435e4
> > 80 46/web-mode.el#L13
> > 
> > The existing copyright says GPL-2+ (not GPL-2).
> > 
> > On 2024-04-10 23:05, Xiyue Deng wrote:
> > > 1. whether I can add the new copyright section to cover debian/*, and
> > 
> > I think it is pretty typical to have a debian/* section. And if the
> > licenses differ (see below), then you would _have_ to have separate
> > sections.


-- 
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]
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