Re: [wdiff-bugs] Re: wdiff (was: Re: gnulib-cache.m4 readability)

[Denver Gingerich]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Karl Berry <address@hidden> wrote:
>     I've been waiting until I figure out the proper format for them,
>    including how to attribute patches
>
> In general, if all you're doing is installing a diff, then the ChangeLog
> entry should use their name and email, not yours.  The date should be
> the date you installed it, however.  For example, if you installed a
> change from me today, you would write
>
> 2008-07-01  Karl Berry  <address@hidden>
>
>    * wdiff.c (main): turned the main loop into garbage.
>
> ...
>
> If you're making some changes to their diff, then use your judgment.
> Sometimes I use my name in the author line and say "based on" in the
> main entry.

Thanks for the tips.  Those are the kinds of things I was looking for.

> There is also "(tiny change)" to deal with, at least if wdiff is
> copyright FSF (is it?).

I thought that I had confirmed with François Pinard (the previous
maintainer of wdiff) that the copyright on changes between 0.5 and
0.5g could be transferred to the FSF, but a review of past e-mails
reveals that I haven't done this yet.  So the answer is: I'm not sure.
 I will get in touch with François and hopefully it will be easy to
track down contributors of non-trivial patches to get the copyright
transferred.

It is unclear to me whether an a GNU package must be FSF-copyrighted.
The maintainers guide references "FSF-copyrighted packages", but does
not clarify whether a package must be FSF-copyrighted to be considered
a GNU package.  It seems that it is preferred that GNU packages are
FSF-copyrighted since it makes things like switching to GPLv3 easier,
but it would be nice to know in case I have trouble getting copyright
assignments whether such a thing is needed.

> See the "Change Logs" section in standards.texi and the "Legally
> Significant Papers" section in maintain.texi for more.

Thanks for the resource suggestions.

>    and bug reports/
>
> If all they did was report the bug, not supply any code, then it's up to
> you whether to attribute it or not.  If you do, be clear about it.  I
> write things like this:
> "Bug report from Joe User, bug-texinfo mail 29 Jun 2008 22:40:34", where
> that date serves as a kind of unique id.  That's just me, though,
> different projects do it differently.  What's important is to make it
> clear that they didn't write any code.

Good to know.  The Legally Significant Changes section of
maintain.texi and your comments clear this up.

>    non-code fixes.
>
> In general, all the same things apply.  Use nodes in the Texinfo file as
> the "function" names.


Thanks for all your help and patience.

Denver