Re: Incompatible module license.

[Jim Meyering]

Yoann Vandoorselaere <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The glob module is licensed under LGPLv2+, and was previously compatible
> with the module it depended on.
>
> I wanted to perform an update today, but there has been changes to the
> glob module that make it depend on non LGPL modules:
>
>  - openat
>  - save-cwd
>  - chown
>  - d-ino
>  - exit
>  - exitfail
>  - getcwd
>  - fcntl-safer
>  - openatdie
>  - unistd-safer
>  - lchown
>  - xalloc
>  - xalloc-die
>  - more..
>
> What is the suggested way of fixing this issue?

FYI, it happened two months ago, with this change:

    http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=commitdiff;h=12a195113bbb3

2007-10-17  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>

        Modify glob.c to use fstatat and dirfd, to simplify it.
        Suggested by Eric Blake.
        * lib/glob.c (__fxstatat64) [!_LIBC]: New macro.
        Don't include <stdbool.h>; not used.
        (link_exists2_p, glob_in_dir) [!_LIBC]: No longer a special case.
        (link_exists_p): Simplify implementation, since we can now assume
        dirfd and fstatat.
        * modules/glob (Depends-on): Add dirfd, openat.  Remove stdbool.

It'd be a shame to revert such a change, just to keep the license
the same.  Yet, I'm reluctant even to attempt to relicense so much code.

Here's a compromise:

Fork the glob module in your version control system: copy the affected
files (just glob.c and modules/glob) into your private gl/{lib,m4,modules}
directories, revert (in those copies) the above change-set.  Then using
gnulib-tool's --local-dir=gl option, you'd stick to using the
pre-openat-requring version of glob.c.

Of course, that means if there are future changes to glob.c, you'll
have to merge them manually.