Re: yes, GPL means GPL3 today... (Re: RFS: gnome-color-chooser)
Neil Williams <codehelp@debian.org> writes:
> The ambiguity of using the GPL symlink is not useful - particularly with
> respect to libraries. It is all too easy to re-license a formerly GPL-2+
> library under GPL-3+ (using the machine-operable nomenclature for
> debian/copyright) and thereby make it impossible for Debian to
> distribute an application that uses the library but which contains GPL-2
> only code.
Agreed. I think debian/copyright should always refer to the exact version
of the GPL that the package says it's covered under and then document
whether only that version is permissable or whether the "or later" part is
available. (The exception is GPL v1, which isn't in common-licenses; in
that case, right now, I think the best course of action is to treat the
software as under GPL v2 for Debian's purposes. There isn't a lot of
software in this category.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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