[bug-gettext] [bug #56863] gettext.h license is viral

[Petr Pisar]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?56863>

                 Summary: gettext.h license is viral
                 Project: GNU gettext
            Submitted by: petrp
            Submitted on: Fri 06 Sep 2019 08:30:53 AM UTC
                Category: Other
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

Gettext manual recommends copying gettext.h from Gettext into a gettextized
software and including it from the software sources. This has the consequence
that the resulting executable contains gettext.h code and this is subject to
gettext.h license.

gettext.h reads:

   This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
   (at your option) any later version.

That means that any software that follow this procedure must obey to the GPL
license. This is pretty inconvenient, especially for software that uses a
different license, e.g. LGPL.

A similar issue has already been raised seven years ago
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gettext/2012-09/msg00000.html> without
any answer.

What's your opinion? Would you be so kind and change the gettext.h license to
something more compatible, e.g. GPLv3 with an exception clause as used in Many
autotools files? E.g. config.sub looks like:

# This file is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#
# As a special exception to the GNU General Public License, if you
# distribute this file as part of a program that contains a
# configuration script generated by Autoconf, you may include it under
# the same distribution terms that you use for the rest of that
# program.  This Exception is an additional permission under section 7
# of the GNU General Public License, version 3 ("GPLv3").





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