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Re: RFC: proposed GPLv3 license exception draft
From: |
Ralf Wildenhues |
Subject: |
Re: RFC: proposed GPLv3 license exception draft |
Date: |
Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:37:18 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) |
* Eric Blake wrote on Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 10:00:47PM CEST:
>
> Autotest output should be in the same category as configure scripts -
> the intent is that a package can distribute and autotest-based
> testsuite regardless of the package's license.
I agree.
> However, the above definition, by specifically mentioning only
> 'configure scripts', inadvertantly excludes Autotest output.
It may suffice to change that to just "scripts"; I'll ask.
> Likewise, the output of autoupdate is a configure.ac file, rather than a
> configure script. Does that mean that if a package runs autoupdate that they
> must then license configure.ac under GPLv3, or are they still free to license
> configure.ac under a license of their choice? Or can we argue that since the
> output of autoupdate is an intermediate file (configure.ac) which in turn is
> used to create the final distributed file (configure), that the output of
> autoscan is already covered by the existing definition of Eligible Output
> Material, and that the license used for configure.ac is not impacted by the
> use
> of autoupdate?
Good question. The intent should of course be that autoupdate doesn't
change the license of the file; after all, we want users to use
autoupdate regardless of license.
Or it may suffice for all these issues to interpret "Autoconf-generated"
as "generated by any of the tools of the Autoconf package".
> Now, for an unrelated question on procedure. How should we go about placing
> the final approved exception text into autoconf source files? Must the
> entire
> text of the exception occur in every file, or are we permitted to create a
> new
> file COPYING.AUTOCONF alongside COPYING, and for every file where the
> exception
> applies, have a shorter paragraph referring to the central file? I'm looking
> at how gcc recently created COPYING.RUNTIME for their exception clause, and
> wondering if the resulting header for each autoconf file requiring the
> exception should look like:
Yes; the idea was to create a COPYING.EXCEPTION file with the exception
text. The proposed header text that Brett sent is virtually identical
to this:
> # 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.
> #
> # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
> # GNU General Public License for more details.
> #
> # Under Section 7 of GPL version 3, you are granted additional
> # permissions described in the Autoconf Exception, version 1.0,
> # as published by the Free Software Foundation.
> #
> # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> # along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
> I'm also assuming that the final version of the exception text (which I'm
> proposing to place in COPYING.AUTOCONF) will receive mention on
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/exceptions.html, alongside the GCC Runtime
> exception.
Yes, I think that's the idea.
Cheers,
Ralf