Re: New LGPL and references in copyright files.
Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
> Does somebody feel the need to clarificate this, so that it explicitly
> says whether it refers to the old LGPL, the new one, or both of
> them?
Yes, please. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea of making
/usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL the new version, but there are two
reasons why the old one should not be completely removed:
1) Some packages may be licensed under "the GNU Library General
Public License, version 2.", not "version 2 or newer". Thus, if
the LGPL v2 is no longer available in a standard location, those
packages will need to carry a complete copy of it in
/usr/doc/<package>/copyright.
2) Even if a package's license says "version 2 or newer", that does
not mean "version 2.1 only". A person using such a package may
still accept it under the Library GPL v2, if they don't like the
terms of the Lesser GPL v2.1. Yes, I know the license hasn't
really changed, but that doesn't mean we should unilaterally force
the "upgrade" on everyone using our distribution. If the
upstream author wants to do that, they can change their license
accordingly...
Thus, I think two things should be done: first, keep the LGPL v2
around somewhere, to avoid unnecessary duplication in
/usr/doc/*/copyright. Second, make sure packagers know that
/usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL is no longer v2, but v2.1, so that
they can make the appropriate changes.
(Just in case anyone wonders, one of my packages -- both upstream and
Debian -- falls into category (1) above, specifically because I
thought that it was likely that RMS would someday decide to sabotage
the LGPL. I may be stuck with using it, but I'm not about to open my
code up to random relicensing by saying "or any future version"...)
--Rob
--
Rob Tillotson N9MTB <robt@debian.org>
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