Re: Bug#380128: info: Incorrect (?) (unclear) copyright statement

[Norbert Preining]

Hi all texinfo gurus!

Maybe this email got lost somewhere, so ....

On Fre, 28 Jul 2006, preining wrote:
> Hi Karl!
> 
> We got notified that info and its man page refer to GPL without v2,
> while the COPYING file refers to GPLv2.
> 
> On Don, 27 Jul 2006, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> > The file /usr/share/doc/info/copyright contains:
> >   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> >   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> >   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
> >   any later version.
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General
> > Public License can be found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL' file.
> > 
> > 
> > However, both the man page for info as well as info clearly state:
> > 
> >        Copyright  C 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  There is NO 
> > warranty.
> >        You may redistribute this software under the terms of the  GNU  
> > General
> >        Public  License.   For  more  information  about these matters, see 
> > the
> >        files named COPYING.
> > 
> > and
> > 
> > There is NO warranty.  You may redistribute this software
> > under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
> > For more information about these matters, see the files named COPYING.
> > 
> > 
> > Since the file COPYING is not shipped by Debian, I could not check there. 
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Given the authorship, I assume this is an (consistent) oversight in the 
> > source for both the man page and the programm itself. For clarity,
> > COPYING should be checked.
> > 
> > I suggest the following:
> > *Contact upstream and ask to clarify
> > *Patch both the man page and the programm to refer to 
> >  /usr/share/doc/info/copyright
> >  instead of the file "COPYING" so that the reader is drawn to a file
> >  actually shipped in the package (or, alternativly, ship COPYING as
> >  well).
> 
> I assume that info is also GPLv2 as I stated in the copyright file, and
> as specified in the COPYING file. 
> 
> So is it ok that I patch the info man page and program to give this more
> specific version GPLv2?
> 
> Thanks a lot and all the best!
> 
> Norbert

Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining AT logic DOT at>             Università di Siena
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