Re: [autotools-idl] autotools-idl: licensing question

[Vladimir P. <gb...@vo...>]

Olaf Mandel wrote:
> Hello,
>   
Hi, Olaf.

IANAL, too, so feel free to object to everything I've written below.
> I am currently trying to package autotools-idl for Debian (my first
> package, please be kind), and in doing so was pointed to a few questions
> concerning licensing of your code:
>
> * In autoconf-orb, none of the *.m4 files contain a license notice. I
> saw that files from the official autoconf package contain a copyright
> notices that are quite a bit less restrictive than the GPL that governs
> your package. Directly applied to your code this would read:
>
> dnl Copyright (C) 2004-2008 Vladimir Panov.
> dnl This file is free software; the author
> dnl gives unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it,
> dnl with or without modifications, as long as this notice is preserved.
>   
No, this doesn't look like the GPL.
> At the moment, as per the COPYING file, all these files are covered by
> the GPL3, so an appropriate header would probably look like this:
>
> dnl Copyright (C) 2004-2008 Vladimir Panov.
> dnl This file is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
> dnl it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> dnl the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
> dnl (at your option) any later version.
> dnl This file is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> dnl but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> dnl MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
> dnl GNU General Public License for more details.
> dnl You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> dnl along with this file.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
> dnl As a special exception to the GNU General Public License, if you
> dnl distribute any part of this file as part of a program that contains a
> dnl configuration script generated by Autoconf, you may include it under
> dnl the same distribution terms that you use for the rest of that program.
>   
This one is OK.
> Please tell me which header I am supposed to put in (or put such a
> header into your own sources).
>   
I decided not to put a copyright notice in every source file because I 
read somewhere (I don't remember where) that a COPYING file is enough 
for the whole package. Anyway, I will put the notice for the next 
release, if this is required by Debian.
> * The license for autoconf-orb is GPLv3+ (with the autoconf exception).
> This differs from the GPLv2+ that is used for autoconf and automake-idl.
> Is this intentional?
>   
Both yes and no:
Yes, I intentionally switched to GPLv3 (out of pure zealotry :-).
No, autoconf-orb's license doesn't have to be the same as autoconf's. 
autoconf-orb is not derived from autoconf. The relation between the two 
is like a C program file and a header from glibc. I could have chosen 
any license for autoconf-orb.
If you feel that I 'm wrong here, please let me know why. I can easily 
revert back to GPLv2.

> * In automake-idl, the copyright to _all_ files, the patched ones and
> the ones that only exist in automake-idl lies with the Free Software
> Foundation (FSF). Is this intentional (maybe in preparation for later
> upstream inclusion)?
>   
Since the main part of automake-idl is a patch for automake.in (I can't 
change the license here), and the latter already has a copyright notice, 
I decided not to copyright the rest of the files differently.
About the upstream inclusion - not that I don't want it, but I doubt 
that it would ever be accepted (autoconf-orb has become quite a beast, 
and automake-idl doesn't make sense without it; besides, CORBA is not 
very popular these days), so I've decided not to try it.
> * Were you the only author, so that you were able to give up the
> copyright on the automake-idl changes to the FSF and are able to make
> decisions on licensing?
Yes, I am the only author.
> Concerning that: if you want to use my previous
> patch I sent, I waive copyright on it, and put it in the Public Domain.
>   
Thanks :-)
> That is, if I can even hold copyright on such a minimal change... :-)
> But IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer), so I thought I better write this.
>
> If you could clarify these points, please.
>   
In short:
1. I will put the copyright notices in autoconf-orb's files in the next 
release.
2. If you know any reason for autoconf-orb to be switched back to GPLv2 
then let me know.
3. Anything else?
> Thanks,
> Olaf
>   
Vlado