TeX Live license issue

[Karl Berry]

    In ghostscript-9.53.3

FYI, the current version is 9.55.0.

    gdevmd2k.c gdevalps.c

1) Please report this to Ghostscript. We don't maintain gs.
https://bugs.ghostscript.com/

2) It appears that these are contributed printer drivers that are not
normally compiled. Thus, unless you actually need support for the "ALPS
MD" printer (guessing not :), you (and we) could/should just remove
those files. They don't affect the license of anything else ("mere
aggregation").

    In avantgar.r31835
    uagb8a.afm uagbi8a.afm uagr8a.afm uagri8a.afm

Oops. Ok, I updated those stale license statements to say the GPL, like
the other afms from URW. In fact they long ago gave permission for their
versions of the 35 basic PS fonts under both the GPL and LPPL, but not
going to bother delving into that.

    May I assume that the package license is the valid one if nothing
    else is explicitly mentioned in e.g. a Readme file?

It's not my place to say what licensing assumptions you should or should
not make.  TeX Live is a compilation of work by thousands of people over
several decades. I'm just one of the volunteers who help put it
together.

We do our best to ensure that everything in it is free software, but
we're only human, and as you've seen, things slip through, especially
from, e.g., 30 years ago when people weren't especially careful about
such things. When we hear about problems, we do our best to address them.

So ... ultimately, although the package license indicated (at CTAN
upload time, normally) is presumably what the author intended, it's up
to you whether to take that as sufficient. Clearly it would be
best/safest to write package authors when there is no explicit license
statement.  --best, karl.