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Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?

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On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:08, Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> wrote:
>
>Would you (the plural you - all those responding so far, and everyone
>reading this who has voting power in Debian) prefer that Debian
>considered "too-strictly-free" packaging a release-critical bug and
>reason for rejection in NEW queue screening?
>
>My question was not which licens each individual developer would choose
>but whether Debian as a project should consider copyleft licensing bad.
>I understand and appreciate that we do not agree on what licensing is
>ideal.
>
>Imagine a proposal was made to extend Debian Policy with a rule, that
>packaging must be upstreamable - i.e. that packages licensed more
>strictly free than that of the contained project must be *rejected* at
>the NEW queue screening, and packages already in the archive with such
>"too strictly free" licensing should¹ be either corrected or dropped.
>
I would not be for such a strict proposal. Though I could get behind an 
addition to policy like this:
"""
It's recommended to license the packaging work (i.e. the debian folder)
under the same terms as upstream. This ensures that cherry-picked 
upstream patches do not cause a license violation.

For instance, if a project has the following copyright stanza:


Files: *
Copyright: 2020 Alice Dev
License: GPL-3

...

you might license the packaging work itself like this:

Files: debian/*
Copyright: 2026 Daniela Debian
License: GPL-3

"""
Might need better wording; ESL speaker here.

Also, as (random) datapoint:
AFAIK, the rust team, the GNOME team, the KDE team and the vim team 
already use said licensing. Not sure about the other teams. When I 
started contributing I was told to use this style.

best,


werdahias

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Thread

is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2026-01-30 15:50 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Matthias Geiger <werdahias@riseup.net> - 2026-01-30 17:40 +0100
    Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Martin <debacle@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 12:30 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-01-30 17:40 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Andrey Rakhmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2026-01-30 17:40 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Arto Jantunen <viiru@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 10:40 +0100
    Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2026-01-31 12:30 +0100
      Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Andrey Rakhmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 12:50 +0100
      Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Matthias Geiger <werdahias@riseup.net> - 2026-01-31 17:30 +0100
      Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Mechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 18:00 +0100
      Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no> - 2026-01-31 20:50 +0100
        Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> - 2026-02-02 16:20 +0100
          Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? "Andrea Pappacoda" <andrea@pappacoda.it> - 2026-02-03 15:10 +0100
          Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> - 2026-02-04 10:50 +0100
            Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-02-04 18:30 +0100
    Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? "Andrea Pappacoda" <tachi@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 17:10 +0100
    Is Packaging Copyrightable (was: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?) Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 20:10 +0100
      Re: Is Packaging Copyrightable Martin <debacle@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 21:50 +0100
        as any other metadata + code expression  Question: Is Packaging Copyrightable Yaroslav Halchenko <yoh@debian.org> - 2026-02-03 00:30 +0100
      Re: Is Packaging Copyrightable Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no> - 2026-02-02 23:00 +0100
        Re: Is Packaging Copyrightable Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 23:40 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Antoine Le Gonidec <vv221@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 17:40 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2026-01-31 20:00 +0100

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