This is the Debian GNU/Linux prepackaged version of GNU cpio (including mt). This package was put together by Clint Adams , from sources obtained from ftp://ftp.gnu.org:/gnu/cpio GNU cpio is Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version. The text of the GPL can be found on Debian systems in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-3 .