[Please Cc me on replies since I'm not subscribed to d-legal] Hi, I'm adopting the spamprobe package which is under the QPL (Qt public license). The package has a broken configure.in script that results in linking against libdb3.so even when libdb4.2-dev is installed. The previous maintainer solved this by build-depending on libdb3-dev, while I prefer to fix configure.in. IMHO the proper solution is to modify autoconf's AC_SEARCH_LIBS macro and put the result into acinclude.m4 in the source tree. Since autoconf macros are GPLed with a special exception for generated output, this holds for my modified version too. vvvvv special exception from /usr/share/autoconf/autoconf/libs.m4 vvvvv # As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives unlimited # permission to copy, distribute and modify the configure scripts that # are the output of Autoconf. You need not follow the terms of the GNU # General Public License when using or distributing such scripts, even # though portions of the text of Autoconf appear in them. The GNU # General Public License (GPL) does govern all other use of the material # that constitutes the Autoconf program. # # Certain portions of the Autoconf source text are designed to be copied # (in certain cases, depending on the input) into the output of # Autoconf. We call these the "data" portions. The rest of the Autoconf # source text consists of comments plus executable code that decides which # of the data portions to output in any given case. We call these # comments and executable code the "non-data" portions. Autoconf never # copies any of the non-data portions into its output. # # This special exception to the GPL applies to versions of Autoconf # released by the Free Software Foundation. When you make and # distribute a modified version of Autoconf, you may extend this special # exception to the GPL to apply to your modified version as well, *unless* # your modified version has the potential to copy into its output some # of the text that was the non-data portion of the version that you started # with. (In other words, unless your change moves or copies text from # the non-data portions to the data portions.) If your modification has # such potential, you must delete any notice of this special exception # to the GPL from your modified version. ^^^^^ special exception from /usr/share/autoconf/autoconf/libs.m4 ^^^^^ Now my question is: are there any legal problems in offering upstream the modified macro for inclusion in his source tree, which is QPLed? Thanks . Siggy
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