Now for the note to the FSF that explains why we need it... here is a first cut to get the ball rolling:
Autoconf, Automake and Libtool have long distributed m4 macro files that are needed to generate the familiar configure script. In the spirit of giving our users all the same rights that we developers have, our intention has always been to allow our users to distribute these m4 macros with their packages so that *their* users can regenerate the configure script if, say, they want to make a patch to get things to work on a platform that the package maintainer didn't have access to.
For this purpose, all 3 autotools have historically had an exception to the GPL in those source files containing m4 macros used to generate a package configuration script, but unfortunately we have used different wordings and in a few cases forgotten to add the exception clause to a macro source file.
We would jointly like to standardise on the wording of the exception clause, and add it into the few files that are currently missing it.
As the copyright holder of these tools, our questions to you are:
i) Is it okay for us to change the wording of the licenses in
our m4 macro source files, and in some cases add in the
missing exception clause, to clarify the spirit in which
they have been distributed all along?
ii) Is the following wording sufficiently clear from a legal
point of view?Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:
"Paul" == Paul Eggert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[...] Paul> As a special exception to the GNU General Public License, Paul> if you distribute this file as part of a package that Paul> automatically derives from this file a configuration Paul> script (and perhaps some associated intermediate files), Paul> then you may distribute this file and the derived files Paul> for that purpose, under the same terms that you use for Paul> the rest of the package. [...]
President Eggert, you have my vote!
Seconded :-)
Cheers,
Gary.
--
Gary V. Vaughan ())_. [EMAIL PROTECTED],gnu.org}
Research Scientist ( '/ http://tkd.kicks-ass.net
GNU Hacker / )= http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool
Technical Author `(_~)_ http://sources.redhat.com/autobook
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