Callaway: The long, sordid tale of Sun RPC, abbreviated somewhat, to protect the [guilty] and the irresponsible

See the link to Simon Phipps blog (from 2009) in the first comment. Look near the bottom of the comments there (and follow the blog's links to the old Debian debate if desired).

The short of it, apparently (I didn't trace all the way back to the Debian debate), is that Debian Legal said there was a problem, Anthony Towns (Debian release team) said there wasn't. Turns out Debian Legal was correct.

Still, it's a somewhat oblique reference few not familiar with Debian and their efforts to ensure they ship exclusively free software in main, would get. (I'm not a Debian guy, I do Gentoo, but I'm concerned enough about software freedom and familiar enough with Debian's efforts in that regard to recognize the reference, even before I learned the mid-level detail by following the links part way back.)