About this in README, and the details missing in COPYING :
| (A special exception applies when linking the library into TilEm, see the
| COPYING file for details.)
I read this in debian/copyright :
| From: Benjamin Moody <benjamin.moody@gmail.com>
| Date: Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 3:50 PM
| All true, and if you want to drop that exception in future versions
| you'll have no objections from me.
| .
| This exception only ever applied to libticables2; if it's mentioned in
| the other libraries' README files I'm sure that was a mistake.
According to the AUTHORS file he is only author of the part "TI8x charset
images".
I believed that he had some part in the development, but I guess not enough.
However, he is the current upstream for the TilEm program, and he may know a bit of the history behind it.
Nevertheless, I'll leave the current libticonv upstream to decide.
I also read this in debian/copyright :
| From: Lionel Debroux <lionel_debroux@yahoo.fr>
| Date: Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 1:09 PM
| Well, said exception was created years before my time as the maintainer...
| I _think_ that this exception is obsolete nowadays, as TilEm 2.0 is
| completely free software. TilEm 0.x used a component with a non-free
| license, but it has been replaced with free software for the TilEm 2.0
| release, produced this year, which Albert is attempting to package for
| Debian as well.
He writes "before my time" and "I _think_", so he doesn't know. And I don't
find his name as an author or as a copyright holder.
So at this point libticonv-1.1.3.tar.bz2 contains README and COPYING files with
incomplete license information, and so far upstream has not yet properly fixed
this issue.
The funny thing is that it was Lionel Debroux who added this exception in
README on 2009-11-24. That seems to contradict with "before my time".
http://tilp.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=tilp/libticonv;a=history;f=README
Interesting find - I'll again CC the upstream for clarification about this issue (and for a potential fix).
I believe though that the project ownership has been transferred to Lionel Debroux, so he may have more authority on copyright decision.
Again, CC'ing for clarification.
For now, I'll go with the ambiguous license specified in README and reupload soon.