Bug 2445996 - Wrong licence for less-color subpackage
Summary: Wrong licence for less-color subpackage
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: less
Version: 44
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Michal Hlavinka
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-03-10 11:55 UTC by Peter Oliver
Modified: 2026-03-11 23:21 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version: less-692-2.fc45
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2026-03-11 23:21:48 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Peter Oliver 2026-03-10 11:55:08 UTC
File /usr/bin/vimcolor says:

# This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
# the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

However, `rpm -qi less-color | grep License` says:

License     : GPL-3.0-only and BSD-2-Clause


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Michal Hlavinka 2026-03-10 20:53:14 UTC
Hi, thanks for pointing that out. This is a tough one...

it says:
# the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

and perl 5 terms say:
"""
It is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either:

a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any later version, or

b) the "Artistic License".
"""

which means that GPLv1+ is ok

perl site also contains clarification:
"""For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License, my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put said script under the terms of the GPL yourself."""

lesspipe says on it's homepage license:GPL which fits the interpretation above

what version is not clarified in the license field or documentation itself, so next one to consider is COPYING/LICENSE files and they provide LICENSE which includes GPL v.2 text that states:
"""
If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
"""

and there is no file with license header/tag nor anything specific on home page. Github says GPL 2.0, but that is just automatic field based on the license file, so no help wrt GPL version.

so, considering all above GPL-1.0-or-later should be correct license tag, but to be on the safe side, I have filed upstream ticket for clarification https://github.com/wofr06/lesspipe/issues/191

Comment 2 Fedora Update System 2026-03-11 17:49:27 UTC
FEDORA-2026-60ebfc53b3 (less-692-2.fc45) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 45.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-60ebfc53b3

Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2026-03-11 23:21:48 UTC
FEDORA-2026-60ebfc53b3 (less-692-2.fc45) has been pushed to the Fedora 45 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.


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