Re: Autoconf Archive Licensing

[Reuben Thomas]

Hi,

1st try: simplest thing: GPL(-compatible), so write to all authors,
see how many you can get to relicense. Even if not 100%, that makes
things better. Explain the problem. I can't believe many authors would
refuse to relicense, though some might simply be out of contact. If
you do manage to get 100% GPL(-compatible), great. If not:

2nd option: emulate gnulib, which has some macros in both LGPL and GPL
flavours, only of course in this case, you don't have multiple
flavours (at least to start with). You could encourage (clean-room)
reimplementations of the problematic macros; many of them fail to take
advantage of other macros in the collection and could have new shorter
implementations. Also (and perhaps more motivating) encourage
redesigned replacements. Plenty of the macros are over-specific and
could usefully be generalised. Two distributions (GPL and LGPL) might
well make most sense for starters.

As an aside, some macros are obvious candidates for inclusion in
autoconf. Is there any discussion with the autoconf maintainers about
this? autoconf-archive is an obvious testing ground for improvements
to autoconf, and many of the AX_ macros in particular are obvious
enhancements to existing macros (e.g. AX_WITH_PROG vs
AC_{PATH,CHECK}_PROG. It would be a pity if over time autoconf-archive
merely added to the complexity of autotools...

-- 
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