Okay.. Let's see if I'm following here and can therefore correctly summerise:
We're required to ship a copy of the GPL with each complete work. We just don't know for sure of the granularity of a "complete work" under the GPL. So I maintain, from the point of view of an end-user of Debian, that the "complete" work is the "official" main + non-US/main distribution. Individual debs, official mirror sites, cdrom packages, and source packages are merely components of this "complete work". If I compile a GPL'd debian package from source, for use on a Debian system not necessarily my own, that package stays a mere component of the "complete work", even if that package is not the same version as the "official" one. However, if I compile the selfsame GPL'd debian package for use on a non-Debian system, then it is my responsibility to ensure a copy of the GPL of whichever version is cited, travels along with the package to the destination. I recognise that it doesn't necessarily follow that the "complete work" shares the same scope when taken from another point of view, for instance that of a redistributor. I however do not see the necessity of including a verbatim copy of any common license in the debs, because the debs are meant to be installed on a Debian system, which will already have a copy of the license installed, or converted with alien and installed on an rpm or slackware system, which ought to have a similar system of common license management. Perhaps, if the consensus is that we MUST TO include a verbatim copy of the GPL, we therefore extend to including a verbatim license irrespective of the license. I suggest that the best place to place this verbatim copy is in the package's metadata. On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 05:36:42PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > > So you're right that the rule is that the GPL must be shipped when you > > ship the complete work, and that it's not quite sensible to mean with > > every piece of the complete work. > > Note that we ship the base-files package marked as "Essential: yes", > and it's shipped accompanying every .deb on every Debian mirror. > > Somewhat analogously, if you have an unpacked source tree available by > HTTP, presumably that's okay, even if the user never bothers downloading > the COPYING.GPL file (since if they wanted to read it, they trivially > could have). Yes? Or must the HTTP server be modified to attach the GPL > to every file downloaded, just in case? > > This seems analogous to the Debian archive, to me. > > Is it also illegal to email a 20 line, GPLed, .c file to someone, > without attaching the entire GPL? > > That seems analogous to someone giving someone else a floppy with a > single .deb on it, to me, rather than any Debian does itself. > > Would you really suggest that every source file should include the > complete text of the GPL so as to ensure the latter never happens? That > seems analogous to what you're suggesting here. It seems like an awkward > and cumbersome solution to something that's not actually a problem > for anyone. > > Cheers, > aj, who begins to see the BSD folks' point > > -- > Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> > I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. > > ``Thanks to all avid pokers out there'' > -- linux.conf.au, 17-20 January 2001 >
