Re: GNU config (config.sub/guess) is now GPLv3 with additional permission
On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 07:22:37PM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Fri, 31 May 2013, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > 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
>
> Indeed.
>
> > 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.
> >
> > And on the flip side, you could also trivially satisfy this by including
> > a generated configure script that doesn't actually get used.
>
> Yes. It is not exactly an watertight wording.
>
> I expect this license might be further updated to correct these points,
> it is not like we don't have to update config.sub/guess at least once an
> year...
>
> So I advise people to stick to the obvious intention behind the license
> change, which is that GNU config is to be used by GPLv3 packages and
> also by packages that use GNU autoconf/automake regardless of their
> license.
Of course; I didn't intend to suggest taking advantage of that
interesting loophole, just that it existed.
> > In any case, this seems like something we could easily scan for with
> > lintian or with any of the automatic whole-archive source scanning
> > tools: just look for a source package that contains config.sub or
> > config.guess but does *not* contain a configure script (or whose
> > configure script does not contain "Generated by GNU Autoconf" in its
> > first few lines).
>
> I will file a bug report with upstream to the effect that the license
> should allow distribution under a different license in any case where
> GNU autoconf or GNU automake is used, even if the configuration scripts
> have not been generated yet.
If that happens, the automated check could then also not warn about
packages containing configure.ac or configure.in. Still seems worth
doing, though.
- Josh Triplett
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