On Thu, 01 Sep 2011 at 18:01:42 +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> how about a repository of ready-made stand-alone license paragraphs ?
Perhaps, but be careful with that sort of thing: it may *look* like your
package's license, but is it actually the same text?
For a long "named" license like the GPL-2, MPL-1.1 or AFL-2.1, the answer is
typically "yes, it's identical", so these licenses might make sense to go in
such a repository, but for BSD-style licenses, minor variations in wording
(some of which are legally significant!) are common.
The copyright file needs to contain the licensing information of this
particular package, not some other package with a similar license (this is
why referencing /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD is not correct unless the
Regents of the University of California are the sole copyright holder, for
instance).
Similarly, when reproducing the GPL boilerplate for a package
("This $THING is free software...") in the copyright file, it should be the
GPL boilerplate that actually applies to this package (the difference is
typically just "This program ..." vs. "This package ..." vs. sometimes
"This work ...", but sometimes goes further).
Regards,
S
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