Re: licenses in generated m4 files

[Peter Simons]

Alexandre Duret-Lutz writes:

 >> Allowing a free-text field for the license essentially
 >> equals allowing the author to choose any license he wants.

 > No, it just means the field is not constrained by some
 > tool.

Um, isn't that _exactly_ what I said above? If the field is
not constrained by some tool, who does constrain it?


 >> In the general case, however, [using arbitrary licenses
 >> is] not possible because not all licenses are compatible
 >> with each other.

 > Let's give the submitter some credit for basic
 > intelligence.

It's not a matter of intelligence, it is a matter of
_effort_. I don't expect the user to read all licenses of
all macros and make educated guesses about which licenses he
may choose and which ones may cause trouble.


 >> I'll need some sort of "comprehensive" list.

 > The [policy] web page already gives one:

 > | All macros accepted into the archive must be licensed
 > | as free software. We accept any GPL-compatible license
 > | [...]

The restriction to GPL-compatible licenses doesn't make much
sense, IMHO, if the archive itself doesn't come under GPL
any longer. In fact, I seem to recall that _you_ were
arguing in favor of accepting only the all-permissive one?

Peter