Bug#517191: One example for #517191
"Nelson A. de Oliveira" <naoliv@debian.org> writes:
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 8:16 PM, Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> wrote:
>> No, that example should definitely not use
>> /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL. It is currently correct and changing
>> it in that way would be incorrect, since /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL
>> is GPL v3.
> But "or any later version" doesn't mean that we can use version 3 and
> all the other future versions? Isn't it valid to point to the latest
> license version?
But how should we read that as a legal statement? Are you're saying that
you're choosing to relicense the work under the GPL v3 and not
distributing it under the GPL v2? Does that mean that further work is
being done under the GPL v3 and the GPL v2 therefore can no longer be used
for the overall Debian work? If so, one should say so explicitly; if not,
pointing to the GPL v3 when upstream is releasing under the GPL v2 or
later is confusing.
I think the text of debian/copyright should reflect what upstream says
about the license. If upstream released under the GPL v2, then it seems
to me that that's the license we should point to, even if relicensing is
permitted. If we're not actually *doing* the relicensing that's
permitted, we're distributing the software under the GPL v2.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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