Re: Bug#436105: suggestion to add GPL-1 as a common licence

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

reassign 436105 debian-policy
thanks

On Sun, 5 Aug 2007, Sam Hocevar wrote:

> Package: base-files
> Version: 4.0.0
> Severity: wishlist
> 
>    There are still many packages that mention the GPL version 1 in their
> copyright file (around 350). Many Perl packages, but also Perl itself
> and widespread things like sed, joe, cvs, dict...
> 
>    There are also countless packages that are under the GPL without
> mentioning the version at all (more than 2,000 but I was unable to get
> a precise number), they should therefore be considered "version 1 or
> above".
> 
>    This is why I believe it wouldn't hurt to ship the GPL-1 with
> base-files, even if most people are going to use "any later version". It
> can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-1.0.txt

I delegate this decision to the policy group, as explained in base-files FAQ.

As your proposal does not require a change in debian-policy, you would
only need two seconds and no objections.

However, my personal opinion is that the GPL v1 should be considered
obsolete and we should deprecate it. The FSF would probably tell you
that the GPLv1 has bugs which have been fixed in GPLv2 and GPLv3.

We would be happier if we had less licenses to consider, not more.

Thanks.