Re: Fixing old-fsf-address-in-copyright-file
(Now including debian-policy; this bears on how to interpret §12.5
w.r.t. changing the FSF's address in an upstream license grant.)
Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> writes:
> Le Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 05:37:08PM +1100, Ben Finney a écrit :
> > If we distribute a package with ‘debian/copyright’ so that it
> > deliberately differs from upstream in this regard, are we not
> > violating policy §12.5 “Every package must be accompanied by a
> > verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license in the
> > file `/usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright'.”?
>
> I think that this paragraph refers to the full text of the licence,
> for which [policy has an exception for the GPL version 2] that
> allows debian/copyright to point only to /usr/share/common-licenses.
[…]
> So I think that the GPL is a double exception. For the license that
> are not listed in §12.5, the requirement of verbatim copy would
> indeed disallow mending any contact address.
Do you agree with Eduardo's argument below:
Eduardo M KALINOWSKI <eduardo@kalinowski.com.br> writes:
> IANAL, but I don't think the address is part of the license. I
> believe the address can be changed to reflect the correct
> information, if the rest of the license information is kept.
The address is part of the “you should have received a copy of the
GPL, if not write to the FSF” text. Either that text is part of the
text that must be in ‘debian/copyright’ verbatim, by policy; or it is
not.
If it is not required to be verbatim in ‘debian/copyright’, then why
include it at all?
On the other hand, if it *is* required to be in ‘debian/copyright’
verbatim, doesn't that preclude changing what it says before upstream
makes the same change?
--
\ “Buy not what you want, but what you need; what you do not need |
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_o__) |
Ben Finney
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