From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mark H Weaver Subject: Re: gpl3 vs. gpl3+ Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2015 11:54:02 -0400 Message-ID: <87d1zevrs5.fsf@netris.org> References: <878ua32pev.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:58435) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZJOFj-0001q8-6N for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jul 2015 11:54:16 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZJOFe-0005J3-Bq for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jul 2015 11:54:15 -0400 Received: from world.peace.net ([50.252.239.5]:55100) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZJOFe-0005Iv-87 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jul 2015 11:54:10 -0400 In-Reply-To: <878ua32pev.fsf@gmail.com> (Alex Kost's message of "Sun, 26 Jul 2015 13:18:00 +0300") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Alex Kost Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Alex Kost writes: > I see that only several packages uses 'gpl3' license. And I don't > really understand the cases when it should be used instead of 'gpl3+'. > > I looked at "aarddict" and "weechat". They have the same > COPYING/LICENSE files as . So it > should be gpl3+, right? The license of a program is determined by the copyright notices in the files themselves, not by the mere existence of a copy of a license somewhere in the tarball. Language like this in the files means gpl3+: ;;; GNU Guix is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it ;;; under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by ;;; the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at ;;; your option) any later version. If the "or (at your option) any later version" language is missing, then it's just gpl3. To ease the labor of looking at the copyright notices on every file, I look at the corresponding Debian copyright file. Debian tends to do a fairly thorough job of license checking. I search for the package using http://packages.debian.org/, I select a package whose version number is the same (or quite close) to the one I'm packaging, and then I select the "Copyright File" link in the "Debian Resources" section on the right side of the web page. Also beware that the Debian copyright file only documents licenses on files that they have not removed. Just below the "Debian Resources" section on the right is a section "Download Source Package". If you see "DFSG" in the name of the original tarball file, that means that they've removed files for copyright reasons. Hope this helps, Mark