fsf-address-in-copyright-file

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

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Christian Schwarz wrote:
> Please have a look at the reports and tell me about
> 
> [...]
>   - other comments about lintian or policy

old-fsf-address-in-copyright-file:

Why do we want fsf address in the copyright file, in the first place?

IMHO, we should not include *both* this paragraph:

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
   along with this program;  if not, write to the Free Software
   Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

and this one:

On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General
Public License can be found in `/usr/doc/copyright/GPL'.

For two reasons:

1. FSF's address is always in the source package.
2. To install the binary package, you need a Debian system (well, you just
need dpkg, should we make dpkg package to Depend: on base-files, for
non-Debian systems?).




I propose an addition to the policy saying that ``when cutting and pasting
from the README of a GPL-ed program to the Debian copyright file, do
replace the phrase saying "You should have received " by the phrase "On
Debian GNU/Linux systems"... '.


This way, only the fsf's address in /usr/doc/copyright/GPL have
to be current (and currently, it is :-).

I would propose then to rename the lintian tag to something like:

E: "old-fsf-address-in-copyright-file" (Error, inaccurate)
W: "fsf-address-in-copyright-file" (warning, because it is not needed).

Thanks.

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