Re: Missing license text in upstream packages
Sven Bartscher <sven.bartscher@weltraumschlangen.de> writes:
> I was recently starting to package a Haskell library, but noticed that
> the upstream package contains a LICENSE file
Thank you for taking care to ensure the freedom of Debian recipients.
> but its content is not very overwhelming:
>
> Copyright <author> <year>
> BSD license
>
> (just to be clear: The actual author and year were in that file, but I
> removed the from this mail)
> So, from this file alone, I couldn't even tell which BSD license is
> meant. Luckily the package metadata gives clarification and lists BSD3
> as license, but still lacks the license text.
It doesn't need the license text. What is needed, though, is an explicit
*grant* of that license. This is something which states “you may [do
these actions] [under these conditions]”.
That license grant can refer to the text elsewhere and still be fine for
our use, provided the Debian source package ends up containing the full
legal text of the license terms and conditions.
> I think this isn't sufficient to include the package in Debian. Is
> this right?
Based only on that text? Yes, I agree. What other text in the work can
be unambiguously interpreted as a license grant?
--
\ “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” —Aldous |
`\ Huxley |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <ben@benfinney.id.au>
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