Re: Does Debian itself have a license?
Hong Xu <hong@topbug.net> writes:
> I understand that each piece of software has its own license in Debian
> and they can be easily looked up. However, I have trouble finding the
> license of the Debian itself, e.g., metadata of packages, default
> configuration files created by the Debian project, etc. Can you
> provide any information on that? Thanks!
My understanding is that the entire operating system is delivered as
packages, and each package declares its copyright information in its
‘/usr/share/doc/$PACKAGENAME/copyright’ document.
The “metadata of packages” I am not sure what you mean? To my knowledge
all the metadata is part of the source form of the package, and so is
subject to the license conditions described for that package. Is there
something else you refer to as “metadata of packages”?
Maybe you mean data that is auto-generated by running some tool on the
source package. If so, and again in my own understanding, the resulting
work is (a) not affected by new copyright restrictions because, being
auto-generated, no creative transformation has occurred, and (b)
therefore all the same license conditions apply as for the source works
from which it was generated.
The same would be true for any default configuration files. They will be
auto-generated (maybe even, simply copied) from some files installed
from a specific package, and so are subject to whatever general license
conditions apply for each package.
> Example: Fedora provides a license for the compilation of the project:
> <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Licenses/LicenseAgreement>; and
> so does CentOS (License agreement upon first boot).
I am not aware of any such explicit declaration for the entirety of
Debian as a whole work.
--
\ “The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the |
`\ traveller reach his starting point in the first place?” —Louise |
_o__) Bogan, _Journey Around My Room_ |
Ben Finney
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