GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 552445
gnome-media has GPLv3 COPYING file
Last modified: 2008-09-23 21:08:00 UTC
gnome-media doesn't seem to contain any GPLv3 code. However the COPYING file in gnome-media-apps 2.23.6 claims it is GPLv3. I think this is because the latest version of automake will create a GPLv3 COPYING file in the module if one doesn't exist. Could this be corrected so that the COPYING file does not specify a license that isn't used in the module? I think all that is needed is to create a COPYING file in the module which has the right license and make sure it is included in the distributed tarball. Note that this module does contain licenses as follows: cddb-slave: LGPLv2 gnome-cd: GPLv2 grecord: LGPLv2 gst-mixer: LGPLv2 gstreamer-properties: GPLv2 profiles: LGPLv2 vu-meter LGPLv2 There is a COPYING.grecord file which specifies its license is LGPLv2. However, this does not really do a great job to clarify the variety of licenses used in this module. I think this module should either do the following: - Specify a COPYING file that says the license is LGPL and then have a COPYING.gnome-cd and a COPYING.gstreamer-properties to specify these are GPL. In this case the COPYING.grecord file could go away. or - Specify a COPYING file that says the license is GPL and then have a COPYING.foo file for each LGPL component (like COPYING.grecord) or - Some other mechanism which makes the licenses for the sub-components more clear.
Another bit of weirdness is that there is both a COPYING.grecord file and a grecord/COPYING file. I think only one file is necessary, and whatever approach is used for specifying COPYING files should be consistent.
It really seems inappropriate for gnome-media to have an incorrect license in the COPYING file. Could the maintainers specify whether the change to GPLv3 is intended, or is this an error. If this is an error, I think it really should be fixed before the next stable release of gnome-media. Bumping up the priority of the bug.
See also : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=551956
Comment 0 neglects to mention that the copyright headers in the files themselves say "or (at your option) any later version", i.e. it's GPL2+ / LGPL2+. So comment 3 is wrong in claiming that the GPL3 is an "incorrect" licence for gnome-media.
Hi! given that GNOME Media is currently under-maintainer, and yours truthfully is doing the releases, I am not aware of any GPL3 license update, and I didn't know that autotools would introduce a COPYING file automatically. This will get fixed in next release. However, I would prefer to find the flag or AM_ macro to explicitly disable the inclusing of ./COPYING, because of the diversity of licenses in GNOME Media. The other solution would be to have a descriptive file, listing the different projects/licenses.
Created attachment 118987 [details] [review] patch fixing the problem Oops, I notice that cddb-slave2 contains some GPLv2 code, so it is GPL and not LGPL as stated above. Sorry. I have attached a patch which I think corrects the COPYING files so they are clear. I created a COPYING file with the GPL license. I also created COPYING.gst- mixer, COPYING.profiles and COPYING.vu-meter files with the LGPL license (note the COPYING.grecord file was already there with this license). I also removed the grecord/COPYING file (and removed it from the EXTRA_DIST of grecord/Makefile.am) since I don't see a need to have this file in the module twice. I also updated the top-level Makefile.am to include the various COPYING files. I also added a few lines to the README file to explain the licensing files. Can this patch go upstream? I think this addresses the issue in a reasonable way.
Hej hej Marc-Andre, will this be fixed for 2.24.0 or for 2.24.1?
(In reply to comment #7) > Hej hej Marc-Andre, will this be fixed for 2.24.0 or for 2.24.1? > crap :) 2.24.1 Sorry I totally forgot, I did a urgent release this morning after Vincent sent a reminder. I was jetlagged ;) Brian, please commit, and it will go in 2.24.1.. sorry about that
Don't know if this important enough to push a 2.24.0.1 if that's the only change to 2.24.0. Still at least 24h left until GNOME 2.24.0 will be released. :-)
(In reply to comment #9) > Don't know if this important enough to push a 2.24.0.1 if that's the only > change to 2.24.0. Still at least 24h left until GNOME 2.24.0 will be released. > :-) > If we have 24h, I guess we can make a 2.24.0.1. Brian please apply, or I will :)
Patch committed. I think a 2.24.0.1 release would be good. Best to have the correct license information, asap, if possible. Thanks.