More AppData news! I’ve been contacted by someone connected to Debian Legal, who apparently want me to add copyright information to the AppData files for licence compliance. Whilst most of the files are CC0 (basically public domain) it doesn’t seem super important, but it is technically required. If you ship an AppData file, I’d appreciate it if you could add <!-- Copyright 2013 First Lastname --> on the second line in the file. I’ve updated the AppData specification examples accordingly.
Additionally, the appdata-validate tool will warning you about missing copyright information if you use the –strict command line argument in the next release.
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hughsie
Richard has over 10 years of experience developing open source software. He is the maintainer of GNOME Software, PackageKit, GNOME Packagekit, GNOME Power Manager, GNOME Color Manager, colord, and UPower and also contributes to many other projects and opensource standards. Richard has three main areas of interest on the free desktop, color management, package management, and power management.
Richard graduated a few years ago from the University of Surrey with a Masters in Electronics Engineering. He now works for Red Hat in the desktop group, and also manages a company selling open source calibration equipment. Richard's outside interests include taking photos and eating good food.
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Does Debian also uses CC0 to license appdata files?
On CC0 you give away your moral rights too, so having a copyright notice doesn’t seem right. If copyright is mandatory then the license should be CC-BY.
IANAL :) I’m just doing as I’ve been asked. I think the issue is CC0 != public-domain in countries like the UK.
There is no such thing as giving up moral rights. In countries such as France and Germany with that distinction even if you use “Copyright My Boss” you retain your own copyright as long as you live; this is also the reason why there’s no concept of true public domain in such countries.