[csw-maintainers] License / copyright files in packages

[Philip Brown]

On 11/10/10, Maciej (Matchek) Blizinski <maciej at opencsw.org> wrote:
>
>> there are exactly two expected cases for the copyright file.
>>
>> a) it contains the copyright in its entirety. Stop. Nothing to see here :)
>
> What if the file is, let's say, 1 line long and does not contain a
> reference?

In theory, it could be
"This software is in the public domain".

I see that as perfectly valid.

I also dont see why you are attempting to be so strict about this.

I think it would be acceptable error checking to have the following flow:

1. does "i copyright" exist?  if no, then error
2. does it reference specific files under /opt/csw/share/doc?
  2.1  Do those files exist?  if no, then error

Done.

The one loophole in this I can think of, is that in the case where a
package is completely useless without another package being present, I
could see it possibly being acceptable to reference the license file
installed from another package. You could, only in that case, consider
the combination of packages to be "the distribution of the software",
and license conditions such as GPL, will be satisfied.

Otherwise, the license needs to be in the same package as the software.