Bug#698019: libav: the effective GPL-licensed status of the binary packages should be clearly documented

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Charles Plessy (2013-01-14 02:55:38)
> On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 11:43 PM, Francesco Poli (wintermute)
> > > 
> > > I think that the effective licensing status of the binary packages 
> > > (GPL-2+ or GPL-3+) should be explicitly and clearly documented in 
> > > the comment at the beginning of the debian/copyright file and, 
> > > probably, in the binary package long descriptions, as well.
> 
> Le Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 09:50:58AM +0100, Reinhard Tartler a écrit :
> > 
> > I am not happy at all with cluttering the binary package description 
> > with license blabla. I would do so only as last resort
> 
> Dear Reinhard, Francesco and everybody,
> 
> I think that the Debian copyright file of libav 6:9.1-1 is clear 
> enough with its comment in the header, and that it is best to keep the 
> license information out of the description of the package.

Newest progress(?) on this is commit e3731d with this commit message:

> Document all licensing of binary packages in README.Debian (not partly 
> as comment in copyright file), to avoid confusing source

That change has not yet released but sits in our VCS.  Could you please 
comment on that?

Sorry, I can't figure out how to reference it at our public anoncms URL, 
but it is commit e3731d at git.debian.org:/git/pkg-multimedia/libav .


> Note that the machine-readable format also allows License fields in 
> the header paragraph to give the license information for the package 
> as a whole.

I am aware of that.  But I am not convinced that *any* of the licensing 
formally covered by the copyright file format 1.0 are about the 
licensing of _binary_ packages.  It is my understanding that they all 
are about sources only, not effective reasoned licenses.


Regards,

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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