Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?

Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:35:12 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.project
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Tollef Fog Heen <[email protected]> writes:

> However, If you do claim that it is copyrightable by putting a license
> on it, I think using a different license than upstream is poor
> form. Packaging someone's work is, hopefully, a respectful and
> collaborative activity with upstream where they'll accomodate reasonable
> requests from the packager, and vice versa.  Choosing a different
> license than upstream seems like adding unnecessary friction to that
> relationship.  (This assumes a free license for the upstream code, if
> it's non-free, I'd say different expectations apply.)

I agree with that, but there are plenty of examples of the contrary in
well-established parts of Debian.  Many Debian maintainers disagree with
upstream maintainers on a wide variety of matters, including licensing
(example: refusing to package GFDL documentation, even without Invariant
sections, or refusal to contribute back improvements on anything
licensed under the GFDL) or cryptographic choice (example: Debian
patches GnuPG away from upstream wishes, introducing incompatibility).

I think this is generally unproductive and leads to poor relationship
between Debian and upstreams.

I believe that kind of behaviour and attitude often is a consequence of
the strong package-ownership model in Debian, where a Debian package
maintainer regard themselves as owner of a package to such an extent
that they are privileged enough to ignore requests from upstream or
other parts of Debian.  I do not see the same extent of that behaviour
in communities without strong package ownership.

IMHO, if a Debian package maintainer has a strong enough idea of how
some upstream package should behave, that is incompatible with upstream,
they should fork the project, rather than adding patches in Debian to
their own liking.  This is the FOSSy respectful way to act if you
disagree with project decisions, and this option needs to be feasible in
a health FOSS eco-system.  Patching project X into something else and
shipping it as project X is disrepectful.

/Simon
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