Debian Bug report logs - #1002053
lintian: false positive inconsistent-appstream-metadata-license (gpl-2.0+ != gpl-2+)

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Package: lintian; Maintainer for lintian is Debian Lintian Maintainers <[email protected]>; Source for lintian is src:lintian (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: Nicholas D Steeves <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2021 01:24:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: confirmed

Found in version lintian/2.114.0

Fixed in version lintian/2.116.0

Done: Axel Beckert <[email protected]>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Subject: Bug#1002053: lintian: false positive inconsistent-appstream-metadata-license (gpl-2.0+ != gpl-2+)
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From: Nicholas D Steeves <[email protected]>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <164004964779.30078.9626890587665415881.reportbug@navis>
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Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2021 18:20:47 -0700
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Package: lintian
Version: 2.114.0
Severity: normal

Hi,

Gpl-2+ (used in d/copyright) is equivalent to gpl-2.0+ used in
appstream metadata, so this is a false positive.  Were GNU to
hypothetically release a GPL 2.1, and were upstream to switch to it,
the onus would be on the Debian maintainer to update d/copyright.  It
also seems wrong to emit this at the warning level for this specific
case.

If lintian is encouraging maintainers to use the "gpl-2.0+" notation
rather than gpl-2+ in d/copyright, then it should emit a different
(lower severity than warning) tag for that case.

It seems clear to me that (gpl-2.0+ = gpl-2+), so it looks like the
correct approach is to use a table of equivalent license notations to
prevent the false positive.  Apologies if bias has prevented me from
deeper analysis or seeing other solutions.

Thanks!
Nicholas

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