[Fedora-packaging] Duplicate files

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 07:55:43PM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 03:46:02PM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 07, 2009 at 11:10:34AM -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> > > However, some packagers absolutely insist on duplicating license files
> > > (say, once in the main package, and again in the -devel package) and
> > > this issue keeps coming up.
> > 
> > And it'll keep coming up in future too.
> > 
> > We are distributing binary packages which you can download
> > independently from
> > http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/development/i386/os/Packages/
> > using just a web browser or 'wget'.  Web browsers and wget don't
> > understand RPM dependencies, and RPM files can be unpacked by a
> > variety of software, not just the rpm program.
> > 
> > Some of those binary packages have the license stripped from
> > them.  The GPLv2 clearly says you should not do this:
> > 
> >   1. [...] and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this
> >   License along with the Program.
> > 
> So if legal says that it's okay to rely on rpm dependencies to do this for
> us, you'd still insist on doing your own thing?

If it was brought to their attention that there is other software that
can unpack individual RPMs, and they gave a detailed response (not
just "okay"), then I'd be interested in reading that response.
Nuanced legal opinions are always interesting to read.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
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