Re: Question about multiple licenses

[Dave Love <fx@gnu.org>]

Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> writes:

> Dave Love <fx@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Indeed.  Not only do you need to list the licences (according to all
>> "legal advice" I've seen for distributions), but normally also
>> distribute the relevant licence texts, even for permissive licences if
>> they require that (e.g. BSD).  I raised this recently, as it's not
>> generally being done, so some Guix binary packages appear to be
>> copyright-infringing.
>>
> Yes, I think Debian has a /usr/share/doc/PKG/copyright file for each
> package PKG. Also, it includes the /usr/share/common-licenses/
> directory, so that those copyright files can refer to the common
> licenses without copying them verbatimly.

Yes.  That won't work for variant licences, though, and for where you
have to maintain the copyright notice in the file.

>>> Also, in this particular case, since ASL2.0 is incompatible with GPLv2,
>>> we actually need to take advantage of the "or later" clause, and
>>> "upgrades" it to "GPLv3+". Listing the license as GPLv2+ would confuse
>>> the user that GPLv2 covers the program, but in fact it is "effectively"
>>> GPLv3.
>>
>> This possibly depends on whether the licence information refers to the
>> source or binary package.  Fedora explicitly says binary, for instance.
>>
> I am unaware of this distinction. Maybe a website explaining this would
> be helpful.

It's in the Fedora reference.  For instance, the licence of a test
program in the distribution doesn't affect the licence of the binary
outputs if it's not shipped.

>> For what it's worth, the information for Fedora and Debian packagers is
>> <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:LicensingGuidelines?rd=Packaging/LicensingGuidelines#License:_field>
>> and
>> <https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/index.html#copyright-debian-copyright>.
>> They're not necessarily consistent, and things may be somewhat different
>> for GNU, but they provide a reasonable indication of the legalities.
>
> I think we should improve the status quote by documenting the license
> accurately in the license field. What do you think?

Yes, following the Fedora example.  I'd assume it's meant to be
basically the same thing as RPM's License: field.