Bug#815308: streamlining license version "or later" version syntax

[Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro>]

On 21/02/16 11:13, Tobias Frost wrote:
> Am Samstag, den 20.02.2016, 19:41 +0100 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
>> Package: lintian
>> Version: 2.5.30+deb8u4
>> X-Debbugs-cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
>>
>>
>> Let's say that debian/copyright contains the following:
>>
>>
>>
>> Files: foo
>> Copyright: 2016, Mr Foo
>> License: GPL-2
>>
>> Files: bar
>> Copyright: 2016, Mr Bar
>> License: GPL-2+
>>
>> License: GPL-2
>>  On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General
>>  Public License version 2 can be found in
>> "/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2".
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Lintian will complain with a warning:
>>
>> W: libfoobar source: missing-license-paragraph-in-dep5-copyright gpl-
>> 2+
>> (paragraph at line X)
>>
>>
>> Should lintian ignore the '+' suffix when determining if a License
>> paragraph exists?
>>
> 
> Well, IMHO lintian is right here.
> 
> You'll need also the "license grant", your License: paragraph'd be
> incomplete without it.
> And the license grant is the one that actually grants the "or later
> option", not the license text itself in /usr/share/common-licenses
> 

There is some ambiguity there, depending on the wording of different
licenses.

Consider the GPL 2 and 3, here they are:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

Both contain a sample license grant at the bottom under the heading "How
to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs"

If somebody copies the license grant into their README or source code
then it is clear they are granting a GPL-[23] "or later" license.

If somebody just drops one of those two files into their repository but
does not copy the text of the example license grant into any other file,
can we assume they mean "or later"?  Or do we have to assume the most
restrictive case, that they only authorize that specific version?

The last sentence in clause 9 only resolves ambiguity for the case where
their license grant is present but does not specify a version, e.g.
source code including "This file is GPL licensed."  It does not resolve
the problem for code that includes a copy of the GPL file without a
grant statement.