Discussion:
relocatable given GPL boilerplate despite asking for relocatable-lib-lgpl
Reuben Thomas
2017-03-20 15:04:19 UTC
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Although gnulib/lib/relocatable.[ch] are LGPL-licensed in their original
forms in the gnulib source tree, they are rewritten to be under GPL, even
though I ask for relocatable-lib-lgpl. Is this a bug?
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Paul Eggert
2017-03-20 16:46:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Reuben Thomas
Although gnulib/lib/relocatable.[ch] are LGPL-licensed in their
original forms in the gnulib source tree, they are rewritten to be
under GPL, even though I ask for relocatable-lib-lgpl. Is this a bug?
Sounds like a bug, yes. However, I did not reproduce the bug when I ran
this:

./gnulib-tool --dir foo --create-testdir relocatable-lib-lgpl
Bruno Haible
2017-03-20 21:31:57 UTC
Permalink
Hi Reuben,
Post by Reuben Thomas
Although gnulib/lib/relocatable.[ch] are LGPL-licensed in their original
forms in the gnulib source tree, they are rewritten to be under GPL, even
though I ask for relocatable-lib-lgpl. Is this a bug?
You mean, you want the copyright notice to say "LGPL" instead of "GPL"?
This is achieved by passing the option '--lgpl' to gnulib-tool. [1]

Bruno

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/Copyright.html
Reuben Thomas
2017-03-20 21:53:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bruno Haible
Hi Reuben,
Post by Reuben Thomas
Although gnulib/lib/relocatable.[ch] are LGPL-licensed in their original
forms in the gnulib source tree, they are rewritten to be under GPL, even
though I ask for relocatable-lib-lgpl. Is this a bug?
You mean, you want the copyright notice to say "LGPL" instead of "GPL"?
​
Yes. Since the sources are checked in already as LGPL (contrary to the
manual, I now see), it wasn't obvious this was necessary. So should
relocatable.[ch] be fixed?
​
Post by Bruno Haible
This is achieved by passing the option '--lgpl' to gnulib-tool. [1]
I already tried this, but it fails because a build-time module funclib.sh I
use is GPLed. I didn't think that was a problem legally for the project, as
it's not part of the built sources (it contains helper functions used by
Gary Vaughan's bootstrap module).

So it looks as though the correct solution is using --lgpl, but it won't
work for me. If I'm not doing something wrong by attempting to use
funclib.sh under GPL to build the project which itself is under LGPL, then
it seems that's a problem with gnulib.
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Eric Blake
2017-03-20 22:06:21 UTC
Permalink
[adding Gary in cc]
Post by Reuben Thomas
Post by Bruno Haible
Hi Reuben,
Post by Reuben Thomas
Although gnulib/lib/relocatable.[ch] are LGPL-licensed in their original
forms in the gnulib source tree, they are rewritten to be under GPL, even
though I ask for relocatable-lib-lgpl. Is this a bug?
You mean, you want the copyright notice to say "LGPL" instead of "GPL"?
​
Yes. Since the sources are checked in already as LGPL (contrary to the
manual, I now see), it wasn't obvious this was necessary. So should
relocatable.[ch] be fixed?
​
Post by Bruno Haible
This is achieved by passing the option '--lgpl' to gnulib-tool. [1]
I already tried this, but it fails because a build-time module funclib.sh I
use is GPLed. I didn't think that was a problem legally for the project, as
it's not part of the built sources (it contains helper functions used by
Gary Vaughan's bootstrap module).
Interesting - that file is not part of gnulib proper at the moment, but
Gary's bootstrap project aims to be something that plays nicely with
gnulib, and has the same directory layouts. In fact, the funclib.sh
module in that repository has this license:

License:
Dual MIT/GPLv2+

which doesn't seem to be something that gnulib-tool recognizes. Compare
that to the license of other build-time-only modules, like
maintainer-makefile:

License:
GPLed build tool

which has a specific license text that gnulib-tool then allows in
combination with --lgpl.

So maybe the solution is to patch the bootstrap project to fix the
license of funclib.sh, rather than fix gnulib-tool to recognize yet
another license designation.
Post by Reuben Thomas
So it looks as though the correct solution is using --lgpl, but it won't
work for me. If I'm not doing something wrong by attempting to use
funclib.sh under GPL to build the project which itself is under LGPL, then
it seems that's a problem with gnulib.
GPL modules that are only used at build time are supposed to be
compatible with --lgpl.
--
Eric Blake eblake redhat com +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
Reuben Thomas
2017-03-20 22:26:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Eric Blake
[adding Gary in cc]
Interesting - that file is not part of gnulib proper at the moment, but
Gary's bootstrap project aims to be something that plays nicely with
gnulib, and has the same directory layouts. In fact, the funclib.sh
Dual MIT/GPLv2+
which doesn't seem to be something that gnulib-tool recognizes. Compare
that to the license of other build-time-only modules, like
GPLed build tool
which has a specific license text that gnulib-tool then allows in
combination with --lgpl.
​Thanks, that indeed sounds like the right solution (also it gives me a
heads up that I'm out of date, as the copy I have says only "GPLv2+").

That just leaves the discrepancy I noticed where relocatable.[ch]
specifically mention the LGPL in the versions in gnulib git, whereas the
manual says that all the git sources should mention the GPL​.
Post by Eric Blake
GPL modules that are only used at build time are supposed to be
compatible with --lgpl.
​Thanks for confirming that.
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Bruno Haible
2017-03-20 23:11:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Reuben Thomas
That just leaves the discrepancy I noticed where relocatable.[ch]
specifically mention the LGPL in the versions in gnulib git, whereas the
manual says that all the git sources should mention the GPL​.
This is because there are alternative instructions for using these files
without gnulib-tool. (Although I don't know whether anyone still goes
with these lengthy instructions; gnulib-tool is quite accepted nowadays.)

Bruno
Reuben Thomas
2017-04-03 23:47:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bruno Haible
Post by Reuben Thomas
That just leaves the discrepancy I noticed where relocatable.[ch]
specifically mention the LGPL in the versions in gnulib git, whereas the
manual says that all the git sources should mention the GPL​.
This is because there are alternative instructions for using these files
without gnulib-tool. (Although I don't know whether anyone still goes
with these lengthy instructions; gnulib-tool is quite accepted nowadays.)
​Where are these instructions? I looked in relocatable.[ch] and
doc/relocatable{,-maint}.texi, and I can't find instructions for using the
relocatable* modules​

​without gnulib.​ (I also grepped the whole gnulib tree for "relocatable"
and looked through some other likely source and documentation files without
success.)
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Bruno Haible
2017-04-04 09:21:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bruno Haible
This is because there are alternative instructions for using these files
without gnulib-tool. (Although I don't know whether anyone still goes
with these lengthy instructions; gnulib-tool is quite accepted nowadays.)
​Where are these instructions?
They are in https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2003-03/msg00020.html
(from 2003). The 'relocatable-*' modules were added to gnulib only later, on
2007-03-01.

Bruno
Reuben Thomas
2017-04-04 21:37:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bruno Haible
Post by Reuben Thomas
Post by Bruno Haible
This is because there are alternative instructions for using these
files
Post by Reuben Thomas
Post by Bruno Haible
without gnulib-tool. (Although I don't know whether anyone still goes
with these lengthy instructions; gnulib-tool is quite accepted
nowadays.)
Post by Reuben Thomas
​Where are these instructions?
They are in https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2003-03/
msg00020.html
(from 2003). The 'relocatable-*' modules were added to gnulib only later, on
2007-03-01.
​OK, so they're not something I would need to remove from gnulib.

Do you have any objection to updating the "default" licenses on the files
to GPL so that there's no discrepancy with the gnulib documentation?
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Bruno Haible
2017-04-05 02:08:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Reuben Thomas
Do you have any objection to updating the "default" licenses on the files
to GPL so that there's no discrepancy with the gnulib documentation?
No objection. Fine with me.

Bruno
Reuben Thomas
2017-04-05 13:44:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bruno Haible
Post by Reuben Thomas
Do you have any objection to updating the "default" licenses on the files
to GPL so that there's no discrepancy with the gnulib documentation?
No objection. Fine with me.
​Thanks. I attach a patch to make this change.​
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