Re: Upstream pointing to COPYING file in headers
On Sat, May 02, 2015 at 08:59:14AM +0200, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sat, May 02, 2015 at 11:52:13AM +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> > Eriberto Mota <eriberto@debian.org> writes:
>
> > > ---
> > > (C) 2007-2009 Lluís Batlle i Rossell
> > > Please find the license in the provided COPYING file.
> > > ---
>
> > That is an assertion of copyright without a grant of license.
>
> Nonsense. There is no ambiguity here at all, it tells you exactly where to
> find the license.
>
> However, you are right that it is *not* a correct license grant for GPLv2+,
> only for GPL2. This is inconsistent with the license statement on the
> website.
>
> > I advise you make efforts to convince the copyright holder to follow the
> > guidance in the COPYING document on “How to Apply These Terms to Your
> > New Programs”. What they have is needlessly ambiguous.
>
> Agreed. Since the website expresses intent to license under GPLv2+, they
> should include this in the source files as well.
>
> Absent a clarification from upstream, I would take the conservative approach
> of treating this as a GPL2 (not GPL2+) work for debian/copyright.
Also note that the final part of GPL 2 section 9 [G1] states:
... " If the Program does not specify a version number of this
License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
Software Foundation."
I suppose that can be an incentive to add an appropriate license
grant.
[G1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html#section9
--
Josué M. Abarca S.
Reply to: