Re: RFC: proposed GPLv3 license exception draft

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* 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