Jim Meyering writes ("Re: willing to contribute verrevcmp to gnulib?"):
> Depending on the code: GPL, LGPL, LGPLv2+.
> For this function, LGPL or LGPLv2+ would be appropriate,
> since it's intended to replace glibc's strverscmp.Right. I hereby permit, insofar as I am able, the relicensing of dpkg's lib/vercmp.c, as LGPLv2+. The copy of the verrevcmp function (which is the one I think you probably want as you probably don't want the epoch and revision stuff which is rather Debian-package-specific) in dpkg 1.13.25 appears to have been rewritten. I don't remember rewriting it so I presume that the new implementation (the one currently in use) was written by someone else. Probably it was written by whoever did the `~' support. dpkg's git history should say. Ian.
