Bug#616550: cfortran: fake license text in debian/copyright

[Aurelien Jarno]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2011 at 10:07:28AM +0100, Bastien ROUCARIES wrote:
> Le samedi 5 mars 2011 14:10:04, Aurelien Jarno a écrit :
> > Package: cfortran
> > Version: 4.4-14
> > Severity: serious
> 
> I have just sending a mail upstream asking to add a licence text in their header. 
> 
> Will wait a week for an answer.
> 

I don't think it's necessary to have a header from upstream, IMHO the
mail alone is fine.

> > cfortran copyright's file contain the following text:
> > | Copyright (C) 1990-2003 Burkhard Burow.
> > | 
> > |     cfortran is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> > |     modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public
> > |     License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
> > |     version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
> > |     
> > |     cfortran is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> > |     but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> > |     MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
> > |     Library General Public License for more details.
> > |     
> > |     You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
> > |     License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
> > |     Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301
> > |      USA
> > | 
> > | On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU Library General Public
> > | License can be found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL-2'.
> > 
> > This text looks like a verbatim copy of a header, however as explained
> > later in this same file, the author only allow the LGPL through an
> > email. You are not the author of the software, you don't have the right
> > to write such a header. The license here is the mail itself.
> > 
> > More importantly, this fake license in debian/copyright allows to
> > redistribute cfortran in *any later version* of the LGPL. This is not
> > something allowed by the author. At the time of the mail, only version
> > 2.0 of the license was available, so there is no doubt it was referring
> > to this version.
> > 
> > -- System Information:
> > Debian Release: 6.0
> >   APT prefers unstable
> >   APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
> > Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
> > 
> > Kernel: Linux 2.6.36-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
> > Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
> > Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
> > 
> > cfortran depends on no packages.
> > 
> > Versions of packages cfortran recommends:
> > ii  bcc [c-compiler]             0.16.17-3.1 16-bit x86 C compiler
> > ii  gcc [c-compiler]             4:4.4.5-2   The GNU C compiler
> > ii  gcc-4.3 [c-compiler]         4.3.5-4     The GNU C compiler
> > ii  gcc-4.4 [c-compiler]         4.4.5-13    The GNU C compiler
> > ii  gcc-4.5 [c-compiler]         4.5.2-4     The GNU C compiler
> > ii  gfortran [fortran-compiler]  4:4.4.5-2   The GNU Fortran 95 compiler
> > 
> > cfortran suggests no packages.
> > 
> > -- no debconf information
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > debian-science-maintainers mailing list
> > debian-science-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org
> > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-science-maintainers
> 

-- 
Aurelien Jarno	                        GPG: 1024D/F1BCDB73
aurelien at aurel32.net                 http://www.aurel32.net