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Re: Automake (alpha) release request
From: |
Bob Friesenhahn |
Subject: |
Re: Automake (alpha) release request |
Date: |
Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:16:26 -0600 (CST) |
On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Russ Allbery wrote:
This wouldn't be doing any favors for non-FSF projects that use Autoconf
and Automake, particularly given that such huge changes in licensing are
rather not what anyone would expect without a major version change.
Right.
Indeed, the configure and Makefile.in files generated by such an Autoconf
and Automake release may actually be illegal to distribute for many
non-FSF projects. I can think of several of mine just off the top of my
head that would have that problem, due to m4 macros or other content that
is covered by a GPL-incompatible license (usually for historical reasons
that are nigh-impossible to change due to the impossibility of contacting
all past contributors).
There is also the little issue of the generated configure.h, which
contains text copied verbatim from autoconf, automake, and libtool.
It becomes part of the C source code for an application.
Without the license exceptions, there are probably 1000 open source
projects which would be dead in the water since they do not use the
GPL v3 license. Even projects which are GPL but have chosen to stick
with GPL v2 could be at risk.
The significance of this issue to the open source community should not
be under-stated. There is no reason to believe that the FSF will
change its mind about non-GPLed projects using autotools but the final
proof will be in the license exception text which is generated.
Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, (continued)
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Sebastian Pipping, 2007/12/16
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Bob Proulx, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Bob Friesenhahn, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Sebastian Pipping, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Brian Dessent, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Sebastian Pipping, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, NightStrike, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Ralf Wildenhues, 2007/12/18
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Bernd Jendrissek, 2007/12/18
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Russ Allbery, 2007/12/18
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request,
Bob Friesenhahn <=
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Harlan Stenn, 2007/12/18
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Ralf Wildenhues, 2007/12/18
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Sebastian Pipping, 2007/12/17
- Re: Automake (alpha) release request, Sebastian Pipping, 2007/12/31