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Re: License of getopt-gnu


From: Eric Blake
Subject: Re: License of getopt-gnu
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:58:45 -0700
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On 03/02/2011 10:40 AM, Matthew Booth wrote:
> I've just been trying to use getopt-gnu in a project, only to hit
> license confusion. The (LGPLv2+) project is already using a bunch of
> gnulib modules, which are all listed in a bootstrap file. Adding
> getopt-gnu to this list results in an incompatible license error. The
> module's license is given as 'LGPL'.

Which means the most recent LGPL version (currently LGPLv3+).

> The bootstrap script calls
> gnulib-tool with '--lgpl=2'.

Which is why you got the license incompatibility warning.

> 
> Firstly, could the license please be updated to 'LGPLv2+', which I
> believe is probably the intention.

Makes sense to me, since this is a module that syncs to glibc, and
glibc's version is LGPLv2+.  Getting consent from the following authors
will make it even more legitimate (everyone listed as an author of any
commits to lib/getopt* since 2007-10-28, when LGPL was changed from
meaning LGPLv2+ to LGPLv3+ in the first place).

Eric Blake - I consent
Bruno Haible
Jim Meyering
Simon Joseffson

> 
> Secondly, the license headers of lib/getopt.c and lib/getopt1.c seem to
> be GPLv3, which doesn't sound right. Do they also need to be updated?

No update needed.  That's the whole point of the --lgpl=2 argument to
gnulib-tool - the license is updated as part of copying it into your
project.  The gnulib model is that files in gnulib.git have the most
restrictive license to make it easiest to symlink those files directly
into a GPLv3+ project without risking license conflicts, but that the
files in the modules/ directory list what other licenses are
appropriate, and gnulib-tool knows how to honor those other licenses
when copying (rather than symlinking) into a less restrictive project.

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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