[DSE-Dev] Adopting Fedora SELinux patches by Debian?

[Erich Schubert]

Hi Václav,
> please, can I take SE Linux patches from Fedora RPM and use these in
> bug-reports against the Debian package for inclusion?

IMHO: yes.

> If it is OK, should be there some copyright notice in a patch included in
> the Debian source package?

IANAL, but for all I know, patches (unless they add major new
functionality) are not considered a work of their own, so the original
author can apply bug fix patches without having to share the copyright
on the application with the contributor. Also if you submit a patch that
doesn't modify the copyright statement present in most files I figure
you somehow agree to transfer copyright of these changes to the original
author. (Major contributions often come with new files, and these files
often bear the contributors name, so it doesn't apply there).
Just my € 0.02, and I'm not a lawyer.

If possible, credit the author of the patch, but you don't have to step
of your own way to find out who actually wrote the patch. If you point
to the fedora/whatever location you picked the patch from that should be
fine, too - you didn't claim it was a work of your own, but pointed to
the location where you got it from (which of course should make it
somehow obvious that copying is okay, though. Given that we're talking
opensource applications here, it's probably safe to assume this as
default)

best regards,
Erich Schubert
-- 
    erich@(vitavonni.de|debian.org)    --    GPG Key ID: 4B3A135C    (o_
            Reality continues to ruin my life --- Calvin             //\
  Bei dem Freunde halte still, der dich nur, nicht das deine will.   V_/_