Re: [gNewSense-users] package adopted: Language-pack-ti-Language-pack-yi

[Markus Laire]

Leo Arias F. wrote:
> Good morning,
>
> I've just addopted Language-pack-ti-Language-pack-yi.
> Now I have another question. There's a copyright file in the debian 
> folder, and it says that the license is gplv2+. But every file has a 
> header saying "This file is distributed under the same license as <the 
> corresponging program>".
> For example, apt.po says "This file is distributed under the same 
> license as apt", and apt's license [1] has an addition to the GPL.

apt's license says that "In addition, prior to November 15th, 2000, apt 
may be distributed under terms identical to the above with the following 
addition:"

So it seems that that addition isn't applicable anymore, and apt's 
license is just "gplv2+"

> And, this way, the acl.po file is licensed under LGPL [2].
> So, shoud I take as the license of the package the one on the Debian 
> folder?

IMO this seems to be a bug in the copyright-file.

Because of such bugs, I don't trust Debian's copyright-files too much. 
To be more sure about actual licensing terms, one should check each 
source-file and not just the copyright-file. (I have a dream of doing a 
program for this task, but it might take years before I have time to do 
it, if ever.)

> [1] 
> http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/a/apt/apt_0.5.27.1/apt.copyright
> [2] 
> http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/a/acl/acl_2.2.42-1ubuntu1/copyright

--
Markus Laire