Bug#218105: tetex-base: woeful copyright file
frank@kuesterei.ch (Frank Küster) writes:
> I find this quite impractical. It seems to me like following the
> policy literally instead of following its purpose.
I disagree. The copyright file is not remotely useful unless it lists
the licenses. In fact it's harmful and misleading if it doesn't (see
2 paragraphs below).
> If somebody wants to redistribute the whole thing, he has to read
> everything anyway (or not, since tetex-base is in main?)
You can't infer much more than it's freely redistributable from the
fact that it's in main and to be honest inferring even that much is
dangerous.
The reason why I filed this bug is because someone copied some of the
tetex fonts into a new package and just stuck "GPL" in the copyright
file, presumably because that's what it said in tetex's copyright
file. This is obviously wrong since the fonts in question definitely
aren't under the GPL. In fact even after searching I couldn't find
what license they're under, and that's what concerns me. Me (and the
maintainer of this new package) should be able to tell that
_accurately_ from the copyright file.
> Wouldn't it be better to just include a list of files with different
> licenses and the exact location of the license files?
No.
>> | Seminar and KOMA-Script have changed their licenses recently but
>> | there may still files that refer to their old copyrights. Both are
>> | copyrighted under the LPPL (LaTeX Project Public License) now. You
>> | can find the text of the LPPL in the file
>> | /usr/share/doc/tetex-base/lppl.txt.gz.
>>
>> The LPPL should be in the copyright file, not an external one.
>
> It's common practice for GPL to include only two short paragraphs and
> refer to the external /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL (perhaps we should
> add LPPL there, too?). So why not do the same for tetex-base?
Because the LPPL isn't in base-files. The common licenses in
base-files are a speicfic exception to this rule and the LPPL isn't
one of the common licenses.
--
James
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