On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 09:44:37AM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote: > > The confusion comes up because the headers in the individual files > > say something else: they say it's GPLed, period. Given this > > discrepancy, which source of information should users believe? > > They should believe the license information on the files that they > have. If it says GPL, then it's GPL. If it says it's LGPL, then it's > LGPL. The retrieval method for getting files from gnulib generates > files that use either wording, so it's up to the guy who retrieves the > files to get it right.
I think I confused this thread by bringing up two issues that were only tangentially related at the beginning. I apologize for that; I didn't realize they were quite so tangential at the time. I agree with you 100% about how users should treat the licensing of gnulib files they get through consumer projects like coreutils: they should rely on the information in the header, and it'd be a lot of trouble to try to advertise the alternative licensing options to them. I have no problem with maintainers of projects that use gnulib sticking with the standard GPL/LGPL notices on the files as appropriate. And I know you can't be responsible for the various ways that different projects use gnulib, so I'm not asking you to police them and make sure they do it the right way, or somehow enforce rules on them. The only thing I'm concerned about at this point is the licensing information within gnulib itself. Right now, if I grab gnulib from git, the header on the argp source will tell me that the code is GPLed, but the documentation in the modules directory will tell me it's LGPLed. I think it would be very helpful for both of those sources of information to say the same thing: that the code is LGPLed. I'm primarily concerned with consistency, so that when people look at the gnulib source (as it exists in its own git repository, not consumer projects), it's unambiguously clear to developers that they can use the code under the LGPL. Helping them find out that the code exists in the first place is a separate problem that can be addressed better through channels other than license headers, and is at most a secondary concern of mine. But, like I said in my last e-mail, I want to see this information made consistent without making your maintainership jobs harder, which is why I've been asking so many pesky questions about how you all use gnulib in your own projects these days. >From what I understand, there's a historical reason why the file headers say the code is GPLed, even though the documentation says it's LGPLed. That's because most projects using gnulib were GPLed, and wanted to use the files under the GPL, and were typically copying them directly into their own source repositories. So having the file headers say "this is GPLed" was a straightforward way to satisfy the common use case. However, I then got the impression that gnulib-tool is now the standard way to get gnulib files into your project's source repository. If that's the case, then I think there's an easy way to make the licensing information consistent without making your jobs harder: simply put the standard LGPL license header notice on the files that are LGPLed, and give gnulib-tool a --gpl switch to convert the files' headers to a GPL license notice on request. Or if you don't want to change gnulib-tool's interface, have it assume that it should change the license headers to GPL by default, and have the existing --lgpl flag keep the LGPL license header that would already be on the files. So, as long as everyone's using gnulib-tool, I think that's the preferable way to go, because then we don't have to write any new text for the license headers. So that's why I'm asking the question: is it true that you all are using gnulib-tool? Again, I understand that there may be other developers out there who aren't, but they can fend for themselves. I'm just concerned about you all as core GNU maintainers. If I've misunderstood something, and not everyone's using gnulib-tool, then we can proceed with the work on some sort of change to the license notice on the LGPLed files. But I'd like to know if there's some reason why the above won't work first. Thanks again, -- Brett Smith Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation
