Bug#633994: debian-policy: confusion over what the license information in the copyright file actually means
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.9.2.0
Severity: wishlist
As far as I know the license data in debian/copyright states what license Debian is distributing the package under.
Clearly all agree that this license must be consistent with the upstream license but I am reviewing a package
where the maintainer believes it is common practice to convey both the upstream license and the Debian license
in a way I find obscure. In particular in DEP-5 format the contention is that the sort license stanza specifies the
upstream license and the long form Debian license.
> In any case there is an inconsistency between the stated version
> >>>> 1.1+ and the license text which mentions 1.2.
>>>
>>> Actually, I don't think there is a mismatch here. This is something
>>> that, I think, is the case with many other Debian packages, including
>>> some maintained by the Debian Perl Group :) The author states "1.1 or
>>> later" and the packager *chooses* to point the reader to a later version
>>> - the one in the common-licenses package, 1.2. You may see an example
>>> of this in e.g. the libmailtools-perl or libtemplate-perl packages,
>>> among others.
So the question is should the requirements (either in policy or DEP-5) be tightened up or left intentionally vague?
-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
debian-policy depends on no packages.
debian-policy recommends no packages.
Versions of packages debian-policy suggests:
ii doc-base 0.10.1 utilities to manage online documen
-- no debconf information
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