Re: lgpl compatible files archive?

[Simon Josefsson]

Albert Chin <address@hidden> writes:

> On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 01:11:05PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
>> Patrice Dumas <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>> > I am currently packaging a library under the LGPL, so I cannot use the 
>> > files
>> > of the gnulib that are under the GPL. Is there somewhere a project similar
>> > with the gnulib but with files with LGPL compatible licences?
>> 
>> Not that I know of.
>> 
>> Note that many of the gnulib source files say "GPL" on them, but can
>> also be distributed under the terms of the LGPL; gnulib-tool will
>> autoconvert their copyright notice when you import them.  Please see
>> the modules/* files for the license for each module.
>
> So, even though lib/strtoll.c says it's licensed under the GPL, it's
> legal for:
>   $ gnulib-tool --import --lgpl strtoll
> to change the license to LGPL?

Yes.  The modules/* files are authoritative for the license.  The
modules file only says LGPL for those files which we negotiated
license changes.  The --lgpl flag won't change the license template
for any files that are not supposed to be available under LGPL.

Personally, I think it would be clearer to make those files have LGPL
in the header (and make gnulib-tool revert it to GPL unless --lgpl is
specified) but that isn't important.

> I'm in need of this for strtoll() in wget which isn't available on
> HP-UX. However, wget has the OpenSSL exception to the GPL and I don't
> want to import strtoll and invalidate the wget license.

I don't think we should add OpenSSL exceptions to any gnulib code,
especially not for basic functions like strtoll.  GPL plus the OpenSSL
exception isn't GPL compatible, IIRC.  Wget has rudimentary support
for GnuTLS today.