Hi, I have some doubts about the automake-provided macro AM_WITH_DMALLOC. This appears to be a development tool which could be useful to help programmers debug their packages. It has a very brief description in the Automake manual in section 6.4.1 "Public Macros"[1], including a link to the dmalloc website.
The trouble is that dmalloc appears to be non-free: the license does not seem to permit distribution for a fee (see below). This macro in Automake doesn't seem to exist for any real portability purpose, but rather it only adds options that help extend program functionality with this library. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I wonder if this macro has a place in a GNU package like Automake. The manual entry may encourage developers to use this macro/library. For an example of this, GNU make 4.2.1 did make use of the AM_WITH_DMALLOC macro, so in turn that package's configure --help output suggests this tool for debugging. The license text found in the latest dmalloc 5.5.2 release is this: Copyright 2000 by Gray Watson Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies, and that the name of Gray Watson not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the document or software without specific, written prior permission. Gray Watson makes no representations about the suitability of the software described herein for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. The permission grant is almost identical to the ISC license except that "and/or" is changed to "and" and, more importantly, the words "with or without fee" are changed to "and without fee". [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#index-AM_005fWITH_005fDMALLOC Thoughts? Cheers, Nick
