License finder?

[Ben Scott]

On 11/17/06, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>   Paul might want to check the "vrms" package -- "Virtual Richard
> Stallman".  It's supposed to identify all non-free software on the
> system.  I've never been inclined to try it myself, so I don't know
> the details.

  Turns out it just ships with a list of packages known to have
restrictions; it doesn't use dpkg at all.

> However, it also appears that dpkg does not
> maintain a "copyright" or "license" field in the (installed) package
> information.

  I've looked into this a little more, and I'm more confident I'm
correct.  The control information in /var/lib/dpkg/status does not
contain license information, nor does the "control" file contained in
the control.tar.gz file contained in a .deb archive file.

  I'm a little surprised that Debian doesn't make the license
information more readily available.  It's a regular field in RPM
packages, and it seems like it could be added to the dpkg control
files easily.

-- Ben