[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#815687: r-cran-truncnorm: debian/copyright states License: GPL-2+, but package seems to be GPL-2-only

[Jason Rhinelander]

Package: r-cran-truncnorm
Version: 1.0-7-1
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

The r-cran-truncnorm debian/copyright states the package's license as GPL-2 or
later, but the source itself appears to state that the package is GPL-2 only:

$ grep License r-cran-truncnorm-1.0-7/DESCRIPTION
License: GPL-2

It seems to me that this might also have implications on the allowable license
of the rdep r-cran-solnp and its rdep r-cran-fportfolio, both of which are
supposedly GPL-2+, but seem incompatible with GPL-3 because of the dependency
on the GPL-2-only r-cran-truncnorm.  Does requiring an R package from another
package count as "linking" from the license point of view?

If so, maybe it would be better to ask upstream if they are willing to
relicense under GPL-2+?



-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.3.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages r-cran-truncnorm depends on:
ii  libc6        2.21-9
ii  r-base-core  3.2.3-6

r-cran-truncnorm recommends no packages.

r-cran-truncnorm suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information