Re: What licenses should be included in /usr/share/common-licenses?

Mechtilde Stehmann <[email protected]> Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:40:21 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hello Agatha,

Am 28.04.26 um 08:39 schrieb Agathe Porte:
> Hello Mechtilde,
> 
> 2026-04-27 10:03 CEST, Mechtilde Stehmann:
>> As a member of the new DFSG team, I would like to restart the discussion
>> from September 2023..
>>
>> The issue at hand is the inclusion of additional license texts in the
>> base-files package.

> This is a great idea, especially for well-known licenses. Personally I
> have been copy/pasting the SIL OFL license for many fonts, but I am not
> sure it can be a candidate for inclusion.

I try it. It seems it is possible to include it.

> When dealing with d/copyright and when a license is present on the
> system, I am still puzzled if I should include a partial text of the
> license [1], or just refer to the path on the system [2].
> 
> [1]
> 
> 	License: GPL-2
> 	 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> 	 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, v2, as
> 	 published by the Free Software Foundation
> 	 .
> 	 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> 	 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> 	 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
> 	 GNU General Public License for more details.
> 	 .
> 	 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
> 	 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,

> <!--	 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. -->
          <https://fsf.org/>
> 	 .
> 	 On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public
> 	 License version 2 can be found in \`/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2'.
> 
> [2]
> 
> 	License: GPL-2
> 	 On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public
> 	 License version 2 can be found in \`/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2'.

This will be a next step. I prefer the first part with the URL I added. 
They don't have a postal address anymore

> Since you studied the subject, I wonder which one we should recommend.
> Maybe this is explained in the policy already, which I admit I did not
> read in detail.
> 
> This change also questions what should be done with the packages in the
> archive. As proposed in a thread you can initiate a mass-NMU for
> updating the d/copyright files, or initiate a MBF with priority wishlist
> maybe.

This will also one of the next step. We can also have a Lintian warning 
for this propose, can't we?

> 
> Thanks for working on this!

Thanks for your comment

Cheers

Mechtilde

> 
> Agathe.

-- 
Mechtilde Stehmann

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