Re: Autogen 5.9.4 licensing

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Bruce, Deborah, 

* Bruce Korb wrote on Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 09:59:17PM CET:
> On Jan 28, 2008 12:37 PM, Deborah Nicholson <address@hidden> wrote:
> > This is Deborah and I maintain the Free Software Directory. I was just
> > adding the newest version of Autoconf. As part of that process, I always
> > look at the licenses.

Are you speaking about Autogen or Autoconf?

> > The latest version of Autoconf comes with GPLv2, but some of the files
> > have a GPLv3 or later notice on them. The last version of Auotconf was
> > licensed with v3 or later, so I'm just checking in to see if you
> > included GPLv2 rather GPLv3 in the COPYING file by mistake.

The latest stable Autoconf release is GPLv2+.  As is the latest Automake
release.

The latest Automake release, 1.10.1, installs a GPLv3 COPYING file into
a project, when
  automake --add-missing

is run, but an existing COPYING file is never replaced with this, not
even if --force is added.

> It is supposed to be GPLv3+, but I confess that I am completely lazy
> about reading the copied in "COPYING" file.  I distribute whatever it is
> that "automake --add-missing" puts in there.  It ought to be defaulting
> to GPLv3 and, perhaps, have an option for installing the old variation.
> I wouldn't need the option, but nonetheless....

If somebody wants such an option, they should speak up (best including a
patch... ;-)

Cheers,
Ralf