GPL and LGPL not acceptable for Fedora!

[Ville Skyttä]

On Friday 17 August 2007, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:

> Labeling them as GPLv1+ is also arrogant and just as wrong to a
> non-lawyer.  When I read that clause and used the GPLv2 COPYING file
> with my own code, I assumed that putting a GPLv2 COPYING file counted as
> "specify a version number of this License".

I agree it's not far fetched to guess this is what has happened in a lot of 
cases.  But FWIW, my strong opinion remains that until upstream clarifies the 
intent (and clarification *should* really be asked if at all possible), the 
only possible choice for us is to comply with what is actually written in the 
license text.

> As an alternative, we could have some boilerplate that specifically
> explains the situation  to the upstream author when we encounter a bare
> "GPL" in the source code:

This would be very useful indeed.  Your boilerplate looks good to me, although 
I'd add some line breaks to make it slightly lighter to read.

> P.S.: Do you agree or disagree with my assessment that a COPYING file in
> the tarball and no licensing information in the source means the program
> is unlicensed and therefore we must get a license from the author or
> have to stop shipping the package in Fedora?

I don't really have an informed nor a strong opinion about that, but perhaps 
I'm slightly leaning towards that this wouldn't be a show-stopper.  
Clarification should absolutely be asked in this case though.