[aur-general] AUR & Copyright

[Ray Rashif]

On 7 February 2011 02:38, Thomas S Hatch <thatch45 at gmail.com> wrote:
> You raise a good point, I would think that we would need to post something
> on the submit page stating the copyright nature. My brothers are lawyers, I
> will check with them as to what the right thing to do is.
>
> -Thomas S Hatch
> On Feb 6, 2011 10:49 AM, "Xyne" <xyne at archlinux.ca> wrote:
>> Eric Waller wrote:
>>
>>> I am not a lawyer and I generally tune out all license flame wars.
>>> That said, PKGBUILDS generally do not contain copyright or license
>>> declarations. Unless I am mistaken, that means someone who comes into
>>> possession of a PKGBUILD does not have the right to republish it.
>>>
>>> As a minimum, I think Arch should get a nod from the creator of a
>>> PKGBUILD prior to absorbing it into the colective -- It might help
>>> avoid any misunderstandings.
>>
>> What is the legal status of files submitted to the AUR? I have always
> assumed
>> that anything uploaded to the AUR is automatically licensed under the GPL
> or
>> something similar, in the same way that content contributed to the wiki
> is.
>>
>> I can't find anything that states this on the AUR site, which is a
> potentially
>> calamitous legal oversight.
>>
>> The legal issue should be cleared up. If we needed to obtain explicit
>> permission from every contributor then the AUR would cease to be useful.
> You
>> would not be able to adopt and update PKGBUILDs without permission, and
> you
>> would need to enable users to delete their own PKGBUILDs when they decide
> to
>> withdraw permission.
>>
>

Err..it is as relaxed as the wiki. I don't see why any question about
ownership should arise. If someone wants to claim ownership and not be
willing to share then so be it (don't even upload to AUR then). She
will have a bad reputation, not our problem.