License finder?

[Paul Lussier]

"Bill Ricker" <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> writes:

>> 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.

I need to identify the license with which over 400 packages are being
distributed with so we can determine, and pass on the proper rights to
our customers, to whom we are redistributing these packages.

I also need to prepare a report for the legal people itemizing each
package, it's version, and the license under which we're using it to
same said legal people.

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

Unfortunately, that's "Not Good Enough" for those we pay an
extraodinary amount of money to tell us what we already know :)

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

Yeah.  Ho Hum. :(

I do want to point out to others:

  http://www.blackducksoftware.com

which sells a product to audit your code, and/or anything you ship.
It contains a huge knowledge-base of FOSS software and with
versioning/licensing data for thousands of packages, and can produce
the type of report I require.  They're not cheap, but a good friend of
mine works there (he actually developed this product himself
single-handedly!)  I'm going to trying to push my management to go
this route, as it's seeming that I can't easily determine this
information myself easily or quickly.

Thanks anyway.

-- 
Seeya,
Paul
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