Bug#1535: GPL gone LGPL exist

[Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>]

Erick Branderhorst writes ("Bug#1535: GPL gone LGPL exist"):
> I had a weird error on my machine. The file containing the text of the
> general public license /usr/doc/copyright/GPL is gone, the file
> /usr/doc/copyright/LGPL is still there. I don't know what did delete this
> file but I 'm quite sure I didn't do it manually. Is some package perhaps
> hardlinking/softlinking to this file and when removing the package the
> GPL is removed too?
>
> Am I missing more files on my system?
>
> How to check.?

This is very interesting.  The same thing has happened to my system.

The file /usr/doc/copyright/GPL doesn't seem to be in any of the
packages on the src.doc.ic.ac.uk mirror of ftp.debian.org, and it
isn't mentioned in any of the /var/lib/dpkg/info/* files on my system.

I conjecture that there was once a package that contained this file
(by mistake) and that the package maintainer removed it.

Bruce: is there a .deb-format base system that can be installed, so
that we can get the file back ?

Ian.