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Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?

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From Ansgar 🙀 <ansgar@debian.org>
Newsgroups linux.debian.project
Subject Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?
Date Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:10:01 +0100
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Hi,

On Mon, 2026-02-02 at 19:27 +0500, Andrey Rakhmatullin wrote:
> It wasn't clear that you explicitly exclude debian/patches/ from the 
> discussion and your questions. You even mentioned that "Sometimes I 
> proactively license patches potential for upstream adoption
> same as upstream, but generally I don't".

Note that, for example, the GPL-2 contains this:

"For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code
for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition
files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of
the executable."

The Debian packaging is (IMHO) "scripts used to control compilation and
installation of the executable". Thus the GPL-2 requires these to be
included under GPL-2-compatible terms.

Using GPL-2-incompatible licenses such as the GPL-3-or-later thus makes
it hard to comply with the GPL-2 (though so does statically linking
GPL-3-or-later libraries like libstdc++, so maybe practically GPL-2 and
GPL-3 should be considered compatible in Debian even if FSF might
disagree). Unless the FSF fixes these problems (at least for -or-later)
by releasing a GPL-2-compatible GPL-4.

Ansgar

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Thread

Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Gerardo Ballabio <gerardo.ballabio@gmail.com> - 2026-02-02 13:50 +0100
  Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2026-02-02 14:40 +0100
    Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Andrey Rakhmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 16:20 +0100
      Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Ansgar 🙀 <ansgar@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 17:10 +0100
        Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2026-02-02 20:10 +0100
          Is Packaging Copyrightable (was: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?) Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 20:20 +0100
            Re: Is Packaging Copyrightable (was: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?) Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2026-02-03 15:10 +0100
              Re: Is Packaging Copyrightable (was: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian?) Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-02-03 18:00 +0100
          Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2026-02-02 21:50 +0100
            Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2026-02-03 15:10 +0100
              Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2026-02-03 23:30 +0100
                Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2026-02-04 00:00 +0100
                Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> - 2026-02-04 00:20 +0100
                Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2026-02-04 02:40 +0100
                Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> - 2026-02-04 19:00 +0100
    Re: is copyleft packaging bad for Debian? thomas@goirand.fr - 2026-02-02 20:20 +0100

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