Re: Request to relicense hash gnulib module to LGPLv2+

[Jim Meyering]

On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Richard W.M. Jones <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 06:51:11PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>> libguestfs (an LGPLv2+ library) uses the 'hash' module, which turns
>> out to be "GPL".
>>
>> Actually this happened because we started to use it in a separate
>> GPL'd utility program, but later on included this functionality in the
>> core library, copying the same code from the utility but not checking
>> the license of 'hash'.
>>
>> We'd therefore like to request that 'hash' is relicensed as LGPLv2+.
>> If this is not possible, we will have to rewrite the code, probably
>> implementing our own hash table, which would be a shame because hash
>> works well for our needs.
>>
>> Notes:
>>
>> - the code doesn't appear to call exit (it does call abort), and so
>>   seems to be suitable for a library
>>
>> - hash-pjw which we also use is already licensed as LGPLv2+
>>
>> - it looks like the original author was Jim Meyering (CC'd)
>>
>> - the dependencies are all LGPLv2+
>
> I'm going to write (or find) a new hash implementation for libguestfs
> really soon.  Is there any final chance this will be relicensed?

Hi Rich,
Sorry I didn't reply sooner.  Somehow I missed this thread completely.
libguestfs is definitely a good argument for making hash LGPLv2.
I agree to relax its license to LGPLv2, and have just pushed this change:

k.txt
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