Re: Request to relicense hash gnulib module to LGPLv2+

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Tue, Nov 05, 2013 at 08:29:15AM -0800, Jim Meyering wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Richard W.M. Jones <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 06:51:11PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >> libguestfs (an LGPLv2+ library) uses the 'hash' module, which turns
> >> out to be "GPL".
> >>
> >> Actually this happened because we started to use it in a separate
> >> GPL'd utility program, but later on included this functionality in the
> >> core library, copying the same code from the utility but not checking
> >> the license of 'hash'.
> >>
> >> We'd therefore like to request that 'hash' is relicensed as LGPLv2+.
> >> If this is not possible, we will have to rewrite the code, probably
> >> implementing our own hash table, which would be a shame because hash
> >> works well for our needs.
> >>
> >> Notes:
> >>
> >> - the code doesn't appear to call exit (it does call abort), and so
> >>   seems to be suitable for a library
> >>
> >> - hash-pjw which we also use is already licensed as LGPLv2+
> >>
> >> - it looks like the original author was Jim Meyering (CC'd)
> >>
> >> - the dependencies are all LGPLv2+
> >
> > I'm going to write (or find) a new hash implementation for libguestfs
> > really soon.  Is there any final chance this will be relicensed?
> 
> Hi Rich,
> Sorry I didn't reply sooner.  Somehow I missed this thread completely.
> libguestfs is definitely a good argument for making hash LGPLv2.
> I agree to relax its license to LGPLv2, and have just pushed this change:

Cheers Jim, that's good news.

Rich.

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