Re: gnulib-tool --lgpl doesn't convert gplv3 to lgplv2.1

[Simon Josefsson]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

> Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> I noticed this for the dummy.c module, which after been imported with
>> --lgpl said:
>> 
>>    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
>>    it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published 
>> by
>>    the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
>>    (at your option) any later version.
>> 
>> The dummy.c in gnulib contains the GPLv3 header, and the modules file
>> says LGPLv2+.
>> 
>> The patch below fixes this, but I'm not sure if there are other
>> unintended consequences.  Comments?  Ok to install?
>
> The patch is not ok: it would also change LGPLv3+ files to LGPLv2+ without
> checking that it is allowed to do this.
>
> This is old code, meant to change a GPLv2+ to LGPLv2+.

Ok.

> In the current situation (where we care about the distinction between
> LGPLv2+ and LGPLv3+ but where GPL means GPLv3+ always),

That hasn't been clear to me: GnuTLS still uses GPLv2 for compatibility
with other GPLv2 applications/libraries, and we can't (and don't) use
GPLv3 gnulib modules.  Several files in gnulib have GPLv3 headers, and
several have GPLv2 headers.  I see nothing in the gnulib manual that
discusses this.

GnuTLS could theoretically use GPLv3 modules in the command line tools,
and use GPLv2 modules for the GPL'd library.  I don't think there is a
problem in using GPLv3 for the command line tools.  But right now there
hasn't been any need for GPLv3 modules in the command-line tools only.
It makes things more complex to distribute both GPLv2 and GPLv3 copies.
So if possible the simplest is to only use GPLv2 gnulib modules in
GnuTLS.

> what is needed is that the option --lgpl takes an argument: --lgpl=2
> means to convert to LGPLv2+, whereas --lgpl or --lgpl=3 means to
> convert to LGPLv3+.

And --gpl=2 and --gpl=3 flags too?

> Pieces of gnulib-tool affected: command line parsing, usage message,
> reading and writing of the configuration, sed_transform_lib_file,
> verification of license (lines 2210..2220).

I think we need to decide exactly how this should work, then we could
try and solve it.  Some questions:

What license headers should gnulib *.[hc] files have?  GPLv3?

Right now there is a mix of GPLv2, GPLv3, Lesser GPL v2 (that license
doesn't even exist!? v2 was called Library GPL), LGPLv2.1, and LGPLv3.
Combined with the License:-statements in the modules/ files, this gives
a rather confusing license impression.

/Simon