mid-linux possible GPL violation

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 9:01 PM, Wookey <wookey at wookware.org> wrote:
> +++ Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton [2010-03-28 17:24 +0000]:
>> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Hector Oron <hector.oron at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> wookey, can i ask you: what does emdebian do?
>
>> > It is true that Emdebian strip packages, but Emdebian keeps copyright
>> > files, often under /usr/share/doc/<$package>/, if it is not there it
>> > should be a bug.
>>
>>  ... and this crucial bit of information was what i wanted to know.
>>
>>  i see no evidence of copyright files in three out of three of the
>> mid-linux.org "extras" repository .debs that i've checked.
>>
>>  which is in itself a serious copyright violation that needs to be corrected.
>
> Is it?

 *click*... good point!

> Are you talking about source debs or binary debs?

 binary.

> I see a
> requirement in the GPL to include the licence with source
> distribution/conveyance, but it's not clear that this is also required
> to be distributed in all binary packages.

 ... that's... very interesting and should be clarified.  if it's
true, then it would tend to suggest that there is a significant
loophole.  just... omit the license from the binary distribution
and... nobody will be any the wiser that it's free software, right?
that's got to be bad.

> Clearly missing the licence out of the sources is a violation and has
> no excuse.

 yes.  that one unfortunately we don't know about, yet.

 l.