[Dev] PKGBUILD for gmnisrv

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Thu, 2 Dec 2021 14:22:39 -0500
bill-auger <bill-auger at peers.community> wrote:

> there is a package in pcr-testing - could ppl try it, and verify
> that it works properly
> 
> i am not impressed with the licensing of this code-base - i see
> no indication of the license, other than a GPL file itself -
> unlike a permissive license, it is not sufficient to simply drop
> a GPL file into a codebase - it must explicitly associated with
> some files, somehow - so strictly, i beleive that it is not
> licensed at all; because the author reserves the claim that it
> was not intended to apply to all portions of the code; because
> no part of the codebase states any exceptions to standard
> copyright - it just so happens to include a GPL file, for
> reasons unknown by any receiver - though it is a petty detail
> (the author very likely intended to license it GPL3), parabola
> probably should not accept the code-base, as it is

The GPL HOWTO[1] has the following explanation for having copyright
headers and/or a statement in the README in addition of the COPYING
file:
> The purpose of a free software license is to give certain rights to
> all users of a program. If it is not clear what rights you have given
> them, that defeats the purpose. Our practices are designed to avoid
> any uncertainty.
> 
> If a program has a copy of a license FOO alongside the source files,
> but doesn't have an explicit statement that “This program is released
> under license FOO,” that leaves room for uncertainty about whether
> the license FOO applies to the code of that program.

So as bill-auger stated, the way to go here is to send a patch upstream
to add the license in the README and/or in the headers. That should be
relatively easy to do.

Then we could simply wait for a new release or add the few patches
between the last release and when the license has been clarified.

References:
-----------
[1]https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html

Denis.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <https://lists.parabola.nu/pipermail/dev/attachments/20220329/51ae110b/attachment-0001.sig>