Is referencing the GPL in the package's README enough of a "license"?

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Mar  7, 2007, Peter Gordon <peter at thecodergeek.com> wrote:

> However, it contains no full license text, and the headers in the
> source files only contain author/version informations. The only
> reference to a license aside from what's on the website is that the
> README file (which I include as %doc) contains the following line:

> 	License: GPL

> Is this reference enough,

IANAL.  It's enough for you to tell that you can use any version of
the GPL, but it's not enough for you to be allowed to distribute the
program without a copy of the GPL, because the GPL itself requires it
to be included.

> or should I also include a full copy of the
> GPL as %doc as well? (If so, I'll email Tavis and bug him about
> including it in the tarball.)

Yes, and you may want to point the author at section 1 of the GPLv2,
that says:

1. You may copy and distribute [...] provided that you [...] give any
other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the
Program

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}