bug#28838: Authoritative answer about licensing and copyright of provided scripts and templates

[Nick Bowler]

On 2017-10-14, Joël Krähemann <address@hidden> wrote:
> I need some authoritative answer about copyright notices to be used
> for scripts and templates. The files generated by autoscan, autoconf,
> automake or alike.
>
> I need this information in order to proceed with a submission on
> savannah.gnu.org,
> https://savannah.gnu.org/task/index.php?14667

Since you posted this to the Automake list I will try to answer the
Automake part of this question.  Note that I am not a legal expert
and this is not legal advice (you won't find that on a volunteer
mailing list).

Automake works by combining code from your project (such as the code you
write in Makefile.am) which is subject to your copyright, together with
code provided by Automake (configure tests, makefile snippets, etc.)
which is subject to the FSF copyright.

So in a free software project, the resulting Makefile.in will need
compatible free software licenses for your parts and for the FSF-
copyrighted parts in order to be free.

Most of the code in Automake is released under the GPL version 2 or
later.  But the configure tests and generated Makefile.in fragments
use a simple permissive license (not the GPL), consisting of a warranty
disclaimer and a notice preservation requirement.  This is compatible
with most, if not all, free software licenses (just preserve the notice).

It should be sufficient to put your own copyright and license notices in
the Automake input files.  These will be copied into the Automake output
along with the FSF copyright and license notices.

Hope that helps,
  Nick