Re: Fixing old-fsf-address-in-copyright-file
Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
>> So far as I can tell from the GPL 2 and GPL 3, Eduardo is correct and
>> the address portion is not part of the notices that the GPL requires be
>> maintained.
> That's speak of what we are legally required to do by copyright law,
> which is not the point I'm questioning. What I'm asking about is what
> should be in ‘debian/copyright’.
Why would those two things be different?
What Policy says is:
Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its copyright
and distribution license in the file /usr/share/doc/package/copyright.
This file must neither be compressed nor be a symbolic link.
[...]
Packages distributed under the UCB BSD license, the Apache license
(version 2.0), the Artistic license, the GNU GPL (version 2 or 3), the
GNU LGPL (versions 2, 2.1, or 3), and the GNU FDL (version 1.2) should
refer to the corresponding files under /usr/share/common-licenses,
rather than quoting them in the copyright file.
This could definitely be clearer about what should be included in the case
of the common-licenses, but in the case of the GPL, the bits required to
comply with section 4 apart from the verbatim copy of the license (which
is what's handled by common-licenses) seem like an obvious, common-sense
interpretation:
You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you
receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice;
keep intact all notices stating that this License and any
non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code;
keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all
recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.
(or see section 1 of GPL 2, which is very similar). The address and
information for obtaining the license is not a copyright notice, a notice
saying that the License applies, or a notice of the absence of any
warranty, so I don't see any reason to include it.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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