DFSG / Packaging: Mystery License Terms

[Will Daniels <debian@willdaniels.co.uk>]

Hi,

I'm trying to package something and have a question. I hope this is the
appropriate place for it. I didn't see a more general packaging
questions list.

There is a file in upstream sources which states the following in the
header:

    Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
    Use is subject to license terms.

However, there is no further indication of which license terms the usage
might be subject to, either within that file or elsewhere. The program
author is not the same copyright holder (i.e. not Sun Microsystems), so
it does not (to me) seem reasonable to take the implication that it is
covered under the general license grant made by the program author
elsewhere.

However, it is just a stupid XML file that looks like some kind of
service definition for the program for use on Solaris systems. I expect
it has been copy/pasted and modified from some other file written by Sun
at some time. Probably there is nothing of any substance that is the
same as the original except a general structure. And the original may
well be free software anyway.

So I worry that I might be being overly pedantic thinking to remove the
file for DFSG compliance? Is there some point at which you can say
something is sufficiently trivial or unimportant to ignore? Or is it
technically not a problem when distributed upstream in an archive that
has a DFSG-compatible license statement, since the license mentioned is
not otherwise defined?

I'm still a bit new to this process and just want to get things right.
Apologies if I'm making something out of nothing. Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
-Will