Re: [PROPOSAL] Full text of GPL must be included

[Brian Mays <brian@debian.org>]

Previously Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:

> > we do not remove the copyright. it is still in the source.  I fail
> > to see why having 300 copies of the same file is needed.

wichert@valinux.com (Wichert Akkerman) writes:

> Reread my mail. Then realize that the GPL explicitly demands it.

The GPL says that we can distribute the binaries ...

:  ... provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each
:  copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep
:  intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence
:  of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy
:  of this License along with the Program.

If here "you" refers to Debian, then we are not violating the GPL.  We
distribute all of the packages, including "base", which contains the a
copy of the GPL.  We distribute the program AND we give our recipients
a copy of the license.  If they decide to take one and junk the other,
that is not our responsibility.

Now, licensees who distribute one of our GPLed packages without also
distributing the "base" package are violating the GPL.  That is not us,
however.

RMS wrote:

rms> The GPL says that a copy of the GPL must come with the package.

I beg to differ.  The GPL never mentions the word "package".  All it
says is that a copy of the GPL must accompany GPL distributed software.
It doesn't mention the means by which that software is distributed,
nor does it set limits on the amount of software that requires its own
separate copy of the GPL.

rms> When you distribute a whole system, once copy of the GPL in it is
rms> ok in principle; but when a single package is distributed, it has
rms> to *come with* a copy of the GPL.

But we distribute a "whole system".  If a third party distributes a
subset of our system, which does not contain a copy of the GPL, is it
our responsibility?  I don't think so.

Really ... this sounds a lot like the unstripped binary thing from four
years ago.  At some point, practicality must win out.

- Brian