[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#718651: Bug#718651: Bug#718651: Bug#718651: Built hostapd/wpasupplicant 2.1 (patch)

[Stefan Lippers-Hollmann]

Hi

On Thursday 05 June 2014, Gerald Turner wrote:
> Raphael Hertzog <hertzog at debian.org> writes:
> > On Wed, 04 Jun 2014, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann wrote:
[...]
> > Files: *
> > Copyright: 1991-2012 Linus Torvalds and many others
> > License: GPL-2
> 
> Thanks Raphael, I was wondering about this.
> 
> Looks like Jouni Malinen began changing from dual license BSD/GPL-2 to
> BSD-only in February 2012 and the transition is well documented in the
> CONTRIBUTIONS file.
> 
> Very few files remain containing the dual license file header comments:
> 
>   Files: hostapd/logwatch/*
>   Copyright: 2005, Henrik Brix Andersen <brix at gentoo.org>
>   License: BSD or GPL-2
> 
>   Files: src/utils/radiotap.c
>          src/utils/radiotap_iter.h
>   Copyright: 2007, Andy Green <andy at warmcat.com>
>              2009, Johannes Berg <johannes at sipsolutions.net>
>   License: BSD or GPL-2
> 
> There's also a couple other files: copy of nl80211.h from Linux kernel,
> some artwork, a spurious Android Makefile.
> 
> Other than those exceptions, perhaps the following is sufficient as
> Raphael suggests:
> 
>   Files: *
>   Copyright: 2002-2014, Jouni Malinen <j at w1.fi>
>   License: BSD

If you look at the existing debian/copyright for wpa 0.7.x-1.x, you'll
notice that I've tried to follow this collation order - but it only 
applies to files where Jouni Malinen is the sole (listed) copyright 
holder. There rest of the (existing listing) are just the exceptions
of the norm, but there are quite a few of those.

e.g. (I'm using debian/copyright of wpa 1.1-1 as reference):

Files: src/ap/ap_list.*
       src/ap/ap_mlme.*
       src/ap/beacon.*
       src/ap/hw_features.*
       src/ap/vlan_init.*
       src/ap/wmm.*
Copyright: 2002-2009, Jouni Malinen <j at w1.fi>
           2002-2004, Instant802 Networks, Inc.
           2005-2006, Devicescape Software, Inc.
License: BSD or GPL-2

Just listing "Instant802 Networks, Inc." and "Devicescape Software, 
Inc." wouldn't be sufficient here, as the exception doesn't inherit
the catch-all stanza for "Jouni Malinen"; it's open to discussion if
it could be simplified to:

Copyright: 2002-2009, Jouni Malinen <j at w1.fi>
           2002-2006, Devicescape Software, Inc.

though, as Instant802 Networks renamed itself to Devicescape Software 
in 2005.

> An oddity I've noticed while scrutinizing over the git history is that
> one attribution statement in particular, "2007-2008, Intel Corporation",
> has been deleted from many files.  Should debian/copyright care?

This is a result of larger code refactoring, the copyright stanzas 
were'nt just forgotten (I'm only looking at hostap_0_7_0..HEAD, if it 
happened before, I might have missed it), the code bearing them 
(hostapd/ap_list.*, hostapd/beacon.*, hostapd/config.*, 
hostapd/driver_i.*, hostapd/hostapd.h, hostapd/ieee802_11.* and 
hostapd/sta_info.c) actually went away (in the non git-rename meaning 
of the word).

> Also there are a lot of attributions to "Atheros Communications" and
> "Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.", looks like these companies merged and Jouni
> Malinen works at Qualcomm, further supporting a simplification of
> debian/copyright.

Here you do have to distinguish between the person and the company as 
copyright holder, which are not equivalent at all. Much of the code
attributed to QCA Atheros has not been written/ submitted by Jouni
Malinen, but rather different (former-) Atheros employees. Especially
in the kernel context, several subsystem maintainers and regular 
contributors carefully distinguish this difference by either signing 
off their code submission either with their personal mail address or
the corporate one of their current employer.

Copies of nl80211.h are a more difficult question though, as its 
copyright status in the kernel tree is scarcely documented, but also
a can of worms if you actually go to the roots of it[1].

Regards
	Stefan Lippers-Hollmann

[1]	http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-wpa/iw/trunk/debian/copyright?view=markup#l13
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