[Followups set.] On Sun, Sep 14, 2003 at 09:46:03PM -0500, John Hasler wrote: > > Debian distributes packages as part of the Debian distribution, not > > (really) as parts intended to be used on their own. > > Fetching individual packages is the canonical way of getting them. DSAs > specifically suggest doing so, and some programs are available only from > the Debian archive. And Debian always provides the source packages as well. > > If people wish to circumvent the tools which enforce this consensus... > > I know of no such tools. Ftp and http work just fine, without requiring > any circumvention at all. It is perfectly possible to retrieve GPL-licensed binary code without a copy of its license text, even from the Free Software Foundation. An exchange long ago in IRC illustrated this: <Manoj> lftp ftp.gnu.org <Manoj> cd /bin <aj> Manoj: no, don't do it!!! <Manoj> get ls <Manoj> 29404 bytes transferred in 1 second (21.5K/s) <Manoj> the FSF has abandoned me, where are my rights? <Manoj> can I sue them for GPL violation? > You can do what you want. However, every one of my GPL licensed packages > contains GPL licensed work of which I am author and I want my license to > accompany it. It will and should, in the source package. Debian binary packages are intended to be installed to Debian systems, all of which contain a copy of the GNU GPL which corresponds to your software. > "COPYING" is the name commonly applied by authors to the file containing > the GPL. It belongs in usr/share/doc/<package>. It most certainly does > not belong in debian/copyright. I disagree. Providing a single copy in /usr/share/common-licenses for Debian binary packages is perfectly adequate. > If you feel strongly about the wasted bytes write a patch for dpkg to > identify copies of the GPL and replace them with symlinks. Your viewpoint appears to be a minority one. -- G. Branden Robinson | I must confess to being surprised Debian GNU/Linux | by the magnitude of incompatibility branden@debian.org | with such a minor version bump. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Manoj Srivastava
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