GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 721455
Obsolete info in license text on multiple modules
Last modified: 2020-11-24 10:15:54 UTC
Many files in various GNOME modules contain obsolete FSF postal address. Current postal address is: 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 Most 'popular' obsolete address is: 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 Quick grep (grep -rH "59 Temple Place" *) on ~300 GNOME modules which I have cloned shows 176 modules contain obsolete FSF address [1]. Total files is 8405 [2] after removing translation files. [1] http://kanada.andika.info/gnome/fsf-address.no-xlat.modules [2] http://kanada.andika.info/gnome/fsf-address.no-xlat.files This bug is a central place to track bugs for each modules. This can also be used to address common concern applicable to all modules.
One possible solution is to run this sed script from Nicolas Goutte [1] on each file. [1] http://susepaste.org/31671566
fredp suggested in #gnome-hackers to replace those obsolete address with You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
The script there is gone, unfortunately (HTTP 404).
(In reply to comment #2) > fredp suggested in #gnome-hackers to replace those obsolete address with > > You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License > along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. +1 Note well that this is the current boilerplate recommended by http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html .
Hi, The way individual bugreports for projects are phrased, they suggest to replace Temple place only and don't mention that other obsolete addresses might also exist. IMO if this issue is important enough to spend time on it, at least we should do it properly and find and update all the obsolete license files.
The best way to handle this issue could be create a new GNOME Goal [1] to track which modules are fixed and which not. Using a bash/python script to replace the text should be the best way to do it. [1]https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/
There is a proposal [1] in Gnome Goals relevant to this bug. "verify all source files to make sure they have a license and a copyright, and that both are up-to-date" Should we expand that proposal entry? [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/Proposals
licensecheck [1] will give more comprehensive result. Thanks to Snark's comment on #721610. I believe this command is in devscripts package on Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives, or rpmdevtools on Red Hat/Fedora/SuSE and derivatives. [1] http://linux.die.net/man/1/licensecheck
(In reply to comment #7) > Should we expand that proposal entry? > > [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/Proposals We could talk about it in Desktop Devel mail list and, maybe, also in Foundation list, as license issues may concern this last one. Once approved, we can create a new GNOME Goal with the modules affected and all the information needed to identify and fix the source files (licensecheck seems to bea really useful tool, so we can recommend to use it) and make a call to all maintainers to review their source files to modify them
dumb script to automate process http://kanada.andika.info/gnome/fsf-patch.sh
(In reply to comment #10) > dumb script to automate process > http://kanada.andika.info/gnome/fsf-patch.sh Many thanks Andika for sharing the script :) I'm going to prepare some patches to include them in the open bugs. Cheers!
Hi Daniel, You've just committed this change to GParted's GIT repo: Fixed FSF's address. Fixes #721565 https://git.gnome.org/browse/gparted/commit/?id=9f5d683644d698fa7f8c034ceaadb9baeaeaed07 As per previous discussion here https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721565#c9 you're incorrectly removing the word 'Library' from the pre and post sections in the GPL when it talking about the LGPL as an alternative license for libraries. Please explain. Please don't do it again. I'll revert your change later. Thanks, Mike
Hi Mike, I've ran a script to commit all pending patches I had about this issue, and I forgot to remove Gparted from the list of the affected modules. We had already talked about it, and if I'm not wrong, patch was already properly commited, so I've reverted the last commit. Sorry for the incovenience ant thanks for noticing it
Updated Tracker now, should be complete, the gvdb/* files are imported and won't be changed until we update the imported code we're using to avoid possible conflict issues. Thanks :)
bugzilla.gnome.org is being replaced by gitlab.gnome.org. We are closing all older tickets in GNOME Bugzilla. If this is still a valid request in a recent and currently supported version of GNOME, then please feel free to use https://gitlab.gnome.org/groups/GNOME/-/issues and/or (if this ticket is about a general Initiative) check the `9. Initiative` labels on https://gitlab.gnome.org/groups/GNOME/-/labels if they should be applied on codebase-specific tickets in GitLab. Thanks.