Re: question on adding licenses from code website
Hi, Steve,
على الجمعـة 6 كانون الثاني 2017 06:24، كتب Stephen Sinclair:
> Hello,
>
> I mentioned previously that I'm interested in packaging a few bits of
> numerical code available from some university websites that we depend
> on.
>
> One is LUMOD from Stanford, and I stated that it had no license. I've
> now been informed that I missed a page on their site where the license
> is indeed given as optionally MIT or BSD:
>
> http://web.stanford.edu/group/SOL/software.html
>
> It consists of a single sentence at the top of that web page. Clearly
> the intention is to make the software free, however the license is not
> found in the downloadable zip files or any source files. I can try to
> convince them to add it to the source downloads, but as you know
> convincing people to change a file containing old code that has been
> hosted there for years is difficult at best.
>
> My question for Debian developers is, is it ok for me to add a quilt
> patch in my package that adds the license, or is that a no-no?
>
I don't think a quilt patch would be appropriate. I would
simply put the license text in debian/copyright and, in the
corresponding Files stanza, add a Comment field pointing to the URL
where this is said. Like:
~~~
Files: *
Copyright: <...>
License: MIT or BSD-3-Clause-SOL
Comment:
The license for this software is stated at
<http://web.stanford.edu/group/SOL/software.html>
~~~
The BSD license block should probably also have a link to where it came
from:
~~~
License: BSD-3-Clause-SOL
<license text>
Comment:
Taken from <http://web.stanford.edu/group/SOL/BSDlicense.html>
~~~
This looks like your best option, barring inclusion of the license in
the source code. Are you sure there is no menion of licensing in the
headers of the individual source files?
Thanks and regards
Afif
--
Afif Elghraoui | عفيف الغراوي
http://afif.ghraoui.name
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