Bug#829027: libstroke: missing/obsolete coypright information
control: severity -1 normal
Dear Vincent,
Thank you for your bug report.
On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 10:44:36PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> The Debian policy manual says:
>
> "In addition, the copyright file must say where the upstream sources
> (if any) were obtained, and should name the original authors."
This clause is made up of two requirements:
1. "the copyright file must say where the upstream sources ... were obtained"
2. "the copyright file ... should name the original authors"
libstroke does not violate the first requirement: the copyright file
does say where the upstream sources /were/ obtained, even though they
can no longer be obtained there. (I believe that the requirement is for
FTP-master verification of the copyright status that the copyright file
claims; since that verification has already taken place, it is not a
problem that the source is no longer accessible there.)
I'm not sure whether libstroke violates the second requirement. The
original author is, arguably, the company called "ETLA", and one could
argue that the URL included in the copyright file names them. You are
correct that it could be much clearer, and the next upload of libstroke
ought to correct this.
Only the first of the two requirements is a severe violation of Debian
policy. As per the bug severity definitions, a serious bug is one that
"violates a 'must' or 'required' directive," and 'should' is much weaker
than 'must' and 'required'. So I'm lowering the severity.
> Now, this library is dead upstream (latest version in 2001, with an
> autoconf incompatibility since 2002, affecting the build of other
> software, still not fixed). Perhaps it would be better to remove it
> from Debian, and make packages no longer depend on libstroke.
Someone has contributed a patch fixing the autoconf problem. You are
encouraged to prepare a QA upload applying it (and also fixing this
bug): <https://mentors.debian.net/sponsors/rfs-howto>.
--
Sean Whitton
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