Re: GNU config (config.sub/guess) is now GPLv3 with additional permission
Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> writes:
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 06:44:00PM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
>> Upstream has changed the license to GPLv3. It has an additional
>> permission to negate any "viral effects", but it only applies to
>> packages that include a configuration script generated by GNU
>> autoconf.
> [...]
>> Here is the new license text for config.sub and config.guess:
> [...]
>> 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").
> Interesting choice of wording. Read literally ("generated by
> Autoconf"), this would mean that the exception only applies when you
> distribute config.guess or config.sub as part of a source distribution
> that includes the generated configure, not just the input configure.ac.
> Which should be the case for most source distributions, but it still
> seems interesting.
I suspect that most distributions that don't include the generated
configure script also don't include config.{sub,guess} and rely on
autoreconf to copy those files in from some system location.
Also, it's worth noting that config.{sub,guess} are standalone shell
scripts that are invoked as independent programs, and are not linked into
or included in any other work in all their usages of which I'm aware, so
the change of license has very little effect. Given that they are shell
scripts, they are their own source code, so as far as I can tell all the
requirements of the GPLv3 are trivially satisfied even if you include them
as part of the build system of entirely non-free software provided that
you include a copy of the GPLv3 somewhere.
I have a hard time imagining any situation in which this licensing change
has any practical impact.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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