Package: ftp.debian.org Severity: normal Hi,
I've taken over maintenance of the mirror package recently and started working on fixing up some of the issues. The package is currently RC-buggy (#688348) due to (IMHO) a mistaken understanding of DFSG#4 by the previous maintainers - it installs upstream scripts directly from the Debian package, then patches in-place in the postinst. I've spoken to upstream to confirm that this is not necessary, and he agrees. However, I've since started archaeology in the Debian archive to try and make sense of the plethora of patches that are messily applied. I was starting to make progress, but I've just found the following: +# The Debian system patched this file after installation to add: +# ls-lR file patching 2001/09/29 +# Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Ian Maclaine-cross <[email protected]> +# and other changes. +# Debian patches are copyright by their authors and you may use them only +# under the conditions of the General Public License in file GPL. i.e. the existing set of Debian patches are asserted to be GPL, but the code they're patching is very definitely *not* GPL compatible. At this point, there are a few possible ways forward: * continue on with the existing patch-in-postinst mess * decipher and re-invent all the existing patches * get upstream and/or previous maintainers to relicense their work compatibly The first option is clearly wrong. The latter two are *potentially* achievable, but will take *way* more time than is sensible IMHO. Please remove mirror. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
