+You can use the change log as the basis for these records, if you
+wish. Just make sure to record the correct author for each change
+(the person who wrote the change, @emph{not} the person who installed
+it), and add @samp{(tiny change)} for those changes that are too
+trivial to matter for copyright purposes. Later on you can update the
+@file{AUTHORS} file from the change log. This can even be done
+automatically, if you are careful about the formatting of the change
+log entries.
+
+@node Copying from Other Packages
+@section Copying from Other Packages
+
+When you copy legally significant code from another free software
+package with a GPL-compatible license, you should look in the
+package's records to find out the authors of the part you are copying,
+and list them as the contributors of the code that you copied. If all
+you did was copy it, not write it, then for copyright purposes you are
+@emph{not} one of the contributors of @emph{this} code.
+
+If you are maintaining an FSF-copyrighted package, please verify we
+have papers for the code you are copying, @emph{before} copying it.
+If you are copying from another FSF-copyrighted package, then we
+presumably have papers for that package's own code, but you must check
+whether the code you are copying is part of an external library; if
+that is the case, we don't have papers for it, so you should not copy
+it. It can't hurt in any case to double-check with the developer of
+that package.
+
+When you are copying code for which we do not already have papers, you
+need to get papers for it. It may be difficult to get the papers if
+the code was not written as a contribution to your package, but that
+doesn't mean it is ok to do without them. If you cannot get papers
+for the code, you can only use it as an external library
+(@pxref{External Libraries}).
projects / gnulib.git / blobdiff