License issues with libblkid1

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre mathieu.tl at gmail.com
Fri Jul 10 22:17:06 UTC 2015


On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 10:49 AM, Mishari Alarfaj <malarfaj at bluebelttech.com
> wrote:

>
> Hi.  I just wanted to mention that libblkid1 is currently distributed via
> ubuntu 14.04 as an LGPL libarary.  However, when viewing the source, a
> file: version.c is distributed as GPL.  I believe this either breaks the
> LGPL licensing, and the license either needs to be updated or the version.c
> file (which appears to be irrelevant) needs to be removed.  Thanks for your
> time
>

A quick look at the debian/copyright file shows that it is listed (though
not very clearly, I must admit) as having multiple different source files
with different licenses; GPL-2+ is listed [1]. This would include version.c
as under the GPL. (I don't know whether this is correct or not, if it
should be GPL-2+ or just GPL-2).

The debian/copyright file has been updated in later releases to more
clearly list the copyright for each source file. The first stanza is a
catch-all (*) which includes any file not explicitly listed later in the
file [2].

This make me feel like while util-linux might benefit a good look w.r.t
licensing compliance, it's likely already fine (that also depends on local
copyright law...)

Do you have specific concerns about that file or about the general
licensing for util-linux? Are there issues specific to your location I'm
not aware of?

[1]
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/trusty/util-linux/trusty/view/head:/debian/copyright
[2]
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/wily/util-linux/wily/view/head:/debian/copyright

Regards,

/ Matt
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