Re: is GPL2 or later enough for having a package in ELPA?

[Richard Stallman]

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[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > > Ah, and another thing I just found out a few files don't even have a
  > > license included, that is why I thought  a LICENSE could come in handy. 

  > In case of doubt, a LICENSE file or a COPYING file is useful. A line in
  > the readme has a similar effect: they make sure that contributions
  > without a license in the file are understood to be under the license
  > given.

I need to correct some misunderstandings here,

In GNU Project practice, we put a copy of the license text into a file
called `COPYING'.  (Look at Emacs itself for an example.)  Some people
do something similar but call the file `LICENSE'. The file's name is
not crucial, but if you call it `LICENSE', or `FOOBAR', make sure the
program elsewhere refers to it by the right name.

It is necessary for the program to contain a copy of the license, but
including a copy somewhere is NOT the same thing as releasing code
under that licene.  The latter establishes a relationship between the
code (in source files) and the license (in `COPYING' or wherever).

We establish this relation with a license notice.  It says, more or
less, "This code is released under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later --
see the file `COPYING'."  It has a few more lines for legal reasons.
Please use the standard version!

Usually we put the license notice at the start of the source file, but
it can be in other places.  To state this in README is valid, but
there is a drawback: the file may get separated from that README and
then it won't be clear what license the file carries.

Putting a package into GNU ELPA requires copyright assignment.  Uwe,
have you got us copyright assignments for all the material in the
package?

If we have that, we don't need to worry about the details of how the
current code deals with copyright and licenses.  The FSF is now the
copyright holder, so we can and will fix all such details on behalf of
the FSF.  That is what we normally do.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)