Re: Fix FSF address in copyright notices?

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Kumar Appaiah <a.kumar@alumni.iitm.ac.in> writes:

> Pardon me if I miss something, but is it prudent to alter upstream's
> license without their permission in the source? Granted, it's just an
> address change which may not change the constraints and restriction
> imposed by the license itself, but I wonder if this would actually be
> the right thing to do, rather than have upstream fix it.

I don't think the address is part of the license.  The whole license
statement is something like:

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
    your option) any later version.
   
    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
    WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
    General Public License for more details.
   
    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, you can find it on the World Wide
    Web at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html, or write to the Free
    Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
    02110-1301, USA.

The first two paragraphs establish the license, and are normative.  The
third paragraph isn't normative.  It doesn't affect the terms and
conditions of the work; it's just a pointer to where you can find the
complete license.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>