On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 09:32:12AM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote: > Hi, > > I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my > packages. The package in question is "missfits". It contains a > directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark > Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel > Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.
Upstream authors can't change licensing of any files, under any conditions, ever. If I say a file is GPLv2+, it is forever GPLv2+, even if it's combined with a GPLv3 work, in that case the *files* are still GPLv2+, that other file is a GPLv3 work, and the *combined work* is distributed under the terms of the GPLv3, since it satisfies the license of every file in the combined / derived work. > debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package. Yeah, debian/copyright isn't what the binary is distributed under, it's what the source licenses are. If it had MIT/Expat code, you'd still need it in debian/copyright if the other files are GPLv2+ > The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to > debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files > under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain > GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin). Nah, it's wrong because you said LGPLv2+, adding it sounds right. Just because files are being combined in such a way that they're distributed under different terms than some of the files doesn't mean we exclude them. Just like Expat is contained within BSD-3. Or ISC is contained in Expat. You still need all three, since that's the licese for the file. Only the copyright holder can change what a *work* is licensed as. Anyone can distribute a derived work inline witht he terms of their license. That may also contains other terms as well. > Do I miss an important point here? > > Best regards > > Ole Cheers, Paul -- :wq
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