Re: licenses in generated m4 files

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Peter" == Peter Simons <address@hidden> writes:

 Peter> 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.

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

Those who accept the macro in the archive.

 Peter> I don't expect the user to read all licenses of
 Peter> all macros and make educated guesses about which licenses he
 Peter> may choose and which ones may cause trouble.

Hence the need for a recommendation.  I think all-permissive is
fine as a recommendation.

 Peter> The restriction to GPL-compatible licenses doesn't make much
 Peter> sense, IMHO, if the archive itself doesn't come under GPL
 Peter> any longer. 

Actually I was assuming that the archive (i.e. the envelope)
would come under GPL, but that the included M4 file could be
under any compatible license.

 Peter> In fact, I seem to recall that _you_ were arguing in
 Peter> favor of accepting only the all-permissive one?

No, I have never argued for that.  See my initial post:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/ac-archive-maintainers/2005-01/msg00030.html
| My suggestions would be to
| 1) add the standard GPL blurb + the above exception + copyright owner 
|    to all macros
| 2) ask each author whether s/he agrees to relicense his/her macros
|    under an all-permissive license (I do), or plain GPL, in order
|    to get rid of the above exception
| 3) reject new submissions without license

and the use of "may" in the mentioned GNU standards paragraph (which I wrote):

http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices.html#License-Notices
| If your package distributes Autoconf macros that are intended
| to be used (hence distributed) by third-party packages under
| possibly incompatible licenses, you may also use the above
| all-permissive license for these macros.

Although I would not use anything but an all-permissive license
myself, I don't feel the right to deprive other people that to
distribute their macros in GPL if they want to.

Also many macros are distributed in GPL or GPL+exception outside
the archive, and if you derive a new macro from that you should
still be allowed to submit it to the archive.

And finally I'm not sure you'll get an answer from all authors
meaning some macros will still use the current GPL+exception.
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz