Re: Automake and GPLv3

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Brett,

Thanks for your reply.

* Brett Smith wrote on Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 09:47:18PM CEST:
> On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 08:47:45PM +0200, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > Any news on this licensing issue in Automake yet, or is it even one
> > that needs any more work at all?
> 
> Like I said, we would like to update the text if possible, just to bring
> the vocabulary up-to-date if nothing else.  I just sent a mail to gnu-prog
> that has more details about why the update process is taking longer than we
> initially thought.  Is this the only blocker for your next release at this
> point?

Not the only one, but for another stable release (1.10.1), I don't think
much else would be needed.  IMVHO another major release (1.11) can wait
until some more new features have been added, but from a licensing
standpoint both are identical.

> Do you have a particular date you want to make a release by?

No.  Alexandre?

> > Please note that Libtool is waiting for a licensing clarification as
> > well, before moving to anything-v3.
> 
> My understanding is that it's in the same waiting-for-an-updated-exception
> boat; if I'm wrong, please let me know.

Libtool hasn't changed any of its licensing texts yet, so when we do a
release earlier than you're done, it will just be a GPLv2+/LGPLv2+ plus
exceptions one there.

Automake has seen patches to move to GPLv3+; it would not be a lot of
work to undo them and do a GPLv2+ release, but I don't know whether that
would cause legal issues; also, the new license is exactly one reason to
have a new stable release.

Cheers,
Ralf