[Savannah-register-public] [task #13205] Submission of Claws Mail

[Pavel Kharitonov]

Follow-up Comment #9, task #13205 (project administration):

Hello, Ricardo!

> AFAIK default GPL usage is always 'or later' unless specifically removed,

The GPL says


If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the
GNU General Public License “or
any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the
terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version
published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify
a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any
version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.


Now, "or any later version" is obviously not present in


# This file is part of Claws Mail package.
# See COPYING file for license details.


The GPL version is implicitly defined by the text of COPYING, so
it's GPLv3-only; someone might claim that it's GPLv-any, but it's
a stronger statement IMHO.

> but there's no problem in clarifying that in the header.

See below.

>> formally, COPYING is a modification of the GPLv3, which is forbidden. 
> 
> That's simply not true, the license in COPYING is bit by bit the content of
> http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.txt
>
> It's pretty clear where the license starts,

You may be right here.

> and the GPL howto¹ itself says

You may have noticed that the GPL howto says
using the GPL unconditionally involves adding the copyright
notices and statement of copying permission to all sources.

> “In GNU programs the license is usually in a file called COPYING.” not
> that the COPYING file must contain *only* the license.

In GNU programs every source file should contain copyright and
licensing notices as per [0] and [1], so no additional text
in COPYING is ever needed.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices.html
[1]
https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices-for-Documentation.html

>> There are also other practical concerns: let us imagine that the
>> files are copied to another project where the texts of licenses 
>> (for different files) are GPL, LGPL, MIT and a few more, and 
>> COPYING is Apache 2.0; the context would be lost, unlike if you 
>> put the notices as the GPL recommends.
> 
> There's no way you can defend against bad copying practices: let's imagine
> only the code is copied and not the comments, for example.

There is no way to defend against _all_ of them; however, there are ways
to defend against some of them. also, plain copying of files is hardly
a bad practice: if the authors use the methods the GPL recommends,
there is absolutely nothing wrong.

For the original authors, it's virtually as easy to put such full
notices in their sources as the short reference, but the full notices
make it essentially easier to re-use the code for other people.

> Anyway when copying our two-line pointer is pretty clear where the file
came:
> 
> # This file is part of Claws Mail package.
> # See COPYING file for license details.
> 
> Even if this appear in a source file of a Foobar project, I think everybody
> can understand the license referred there is in the COPYING file of Claws
Mail
> package, not in other random COPYING files.

Sure, but Claws Mail package may be unavailable at that point.

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