Re: OK to distribute autoconf.texi under the GPL too?

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Paul Eggert wrote:

> Bob Friesenhahn <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > One approach that Autoconf could take is to provide a special
> > exception so that any sample code copied from the documentation is
> > licensed under the GPL or LGPL rather than GFDL.
>
> Thanks for this suggestion.  At the end of this message is a proposed
> patch along those lines.  Would this patch be enough to satisfy the
> Debian folks?

The patch is not quite right.  Programs are a derived work in 
executable form based on source code.  The source code itself is not 
usually the program (except for plain-text scripts).  The terms need 
to cover document content which becomes part of the source for a 
program as GPL defines a "program".  In other words, if someone copies 
ten lines of sample code, those ten lines of sample code are unlikely 
to comprise a "program" but are used in conjunction with other code 
to provide the basis for a "program".

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen