Hi again, On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 12:31:58PM +0200, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: > I don't see the real benefit (or, like you seem to do, need) of putting > the path of v3 into the copyright file too, because it might be > misguiding IMHO and isn't required, but I don't object to it. I just > want to make sure that we don't point _only_ to v3 in "v2 or later" > packages through using that symlink and not pointing to GPL-2 directly. Ok, then at least we agree about what to do. That's good. :-) > > > The copyright holder doesn't have to ship all subsequent versions of > > > the license, so why do you think we would need to do so? > > > > Because we want to. Because our ftp master will reject our packages if > > we don't. > > That's all but wrong. Please fix your point of view. No ftp master > will reject our packages if we don't have a the path to GPL-2 *and* > GPL-3 in the copyright file if it's licenced "gplv2 or later". Well, they should. Since version 3 is released, "version 2 or later" means "version 2 or version 3" (and it expands when new versions get released). So it is really dual-licensed. Version 2 and version 3 are really two different licenses, and users may choose any one of them. In such a case, the ftp-masters should IMO demand full text of all options. That means both versions. > > We don't have a legal requirement to do this, just providing a link > > would be enough. But we want to provide the complete license, as a > > service to our users. > > Which is the v2 if we want to distribute it under v2, even if it has > the "or later" clause. Which is both v2 and v3 if it has the "or later" clause. V3 is not magically included in v2 just because it says "new versions may be released". > > I disagree with this. I am saying: > > > > If we tell people the license is GPL version 2 or later, then it > > is, no matter what full text we point to (even if we point to an > > irrelevant license, such as a BSD license). The link is only a > > service to our users, and doesn't change anything about the > > actual licensing. > > The link is a service from the policy that we don't need to include the > full text but can get away with only the path to the file. Sorry, I should have been more clear. What I meant is that providing the full license text (directly or through a link) is a service that Debian provides to its users (it does this by writing it in policy). > If you would put in the BSD license and say that it falls under the > GPL the ftp masters will reject that package. They would, but not because it is legally wrong, or means the wrong thing. Just because it is unnecessarily confusing the issue. > > I'll stop responding to this. I'm just saying it is possible to not > > link to version 2, I'm not suggesting we actually do it. By the way, > > not linking to version 3 is also a policy violation, because then we > > haven't provided the full license terms. > > If it says "v2 or later" we _do_ provide the full license terms for how > we chose to distribute it if we show the v2. We distribute it under "v2 or later". We _can_ choose to accept only v2, and distribute it as such, but we don't. So only providing the v2 text (through a link or otherwise) is not enough if we want the full license terms. More practically, if I am a user and I want to use part of the code in a v3 or later program, I will need to receive the program licensed as v3. I think you will agree that I am allowed to accept only v3 if I want to. But if I look in debian/copyright, knowing that Debian always puts all acceptable license terms in there, I find only version 2. The license text that I want to accept is not there, even though I should be able to accept it. That's wrong. > P.S.: Bas, was your Mail-F'up2 in your last mail really on intention? :) No, I should tell mutt that I'm subscribed to this list. I'll do that after this mail, so please ignore it once again. :-) Thanks, Bas -- I encourage people to send encrypted e-mail (see http://www.gnupg.org). If you have problems reading my e-mail, use a better reader. Please send the central message of e-mails as plain text in the message body, not as HTML and definitely not as MS Word. Please do not use the MS Word format for attachments either. For more information, see http://pcbcn10.phys.rug.nl/e-mail.html
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature