License finder?

[Bill Ricker]

> Does anyone know how to programatically obtain license information for
> Debian packages?

You're supposed to be able to preview the copyright file at
http://packages.debian.org/stable/ , but the changelog view is not
working now, and it's part of that.


If it's in the main repository, it's GPL or free-er (e.g., Apache, MIT).

> Any ideas?  Neither apt nor dpkg seem to have --what-license option :(

Every package contains a copy of the license or a link into
/usr/share/common­licenses/*  in directory debian/copyright  if I read
the docs right ("Debian Packaging School")., but I don't quite see
where that goes. But I don't know where in the three tar.gz's in the
.deb it's in.

You may have to check the SOURCE package not the binary package?



-- 
Bill
n1vux at arrl.net bill.n1vux at gmail.com