Re: Software Licenced Under a Specific Version of GPL
>>"Ari" == Ari Makela <hauva@iki.fi> writes:
Ari> The file now includes GPL version 2 but probably not in future Debian
Ari> releases. And what if my package is installed in such a future
Ari> release? It'll have a wrong licence.
Flawed assumption. I think you do Debian and the policy group
a disservice by claiming that we shall, in the future, have such
little regard for copyrights and installed bases.
When GPL v3 does role around, it shall probably go into
GPL-V3; and at the same time we shall have GPL-V23, with the GPL
being a symlink pointing to GPL-V2. At this point, there shall be a
policy directive asking people to rewrite the readme/copyright files
to point to the non-symlink license; and, when there is no package
remaining, shall the file GPL be removed.
So, GPL is likely to remain, and refer to a version 2 licence,
for a long time, until all packages are changed.
Violating policy by including the full contents of the common
license on the assumption that future developers are going to screw
up is not a good idea.
manoj
--
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Reply to: