Re: [RFC] all-permissive license uses

[Eric Blake]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

According to Eric Blake on 5/12/2009 10:21 PM:
>>> The GNU Maintainer standards were recently updated to revamp the
>>> wording of the recommended all-permissive license.
> 
> The GNU maintainer standards are clear that README and INSTALL files can
> and should be placed under the all-permissive license.  But they are
> silent on what license to use for ChangeLog, THANKS, and AUTHORS.
> Obviously, to preserve the user's freedoms under the GPL, the user must be
> able to append information to these files if any modifications are made to
> the package, so the files cannot be under a verbatim-only license.  On the
> other hand, Ralf raises a good point about all-permissive being too easy
> to exploit for unintended purposes.  I'm guessing that they should thus be
> under GPL (or LGPL) along with the rest of the package, but a statement to
> that effect in maintain.texi would be helpful.

There is still some discussion going on the licensing list, but it looks
like the above points are being favorably considered.  At any rate, I'm
now committing this patch, with the modification that ChangeLog, THANKS,
and AUTHORS now use GPL rather than GAP.  We can change things later if
maintain.texi ends up recommending something different.

2009-05-19  Eric Blake  <address@hidden>

        Update uses of all-permissive license.
        * ChangeLog: Relicense under GPL.
        * ChangeLog.0: Likewise.
        * ChangeLog.1: Likewise.
        * ChangeLog.2: Likewise.
        * THANKS: Likewise.
        * m4/m4.m4: Use latest wording of FSF all-permissive license.
        * m4/make-case.m4: Likewise.
        * doc/install.texi: Likewise.
        * tests/statesave.m4: Relicense to match rest of testsuite; this
        file does not need all-permissive license since it is not designed
        for reuse by other packages.
        * BUGS: Relicense under all-permissive license.
        * HACKING: Likewise.
        * NEWS: Likewise.
        * README: Likewise.
        * README-alpha: Likewise.
        * README-hacking: Likewise.
        * TODO: Likewise.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Cygwin)
Comment: Public key at home.comcast.net/~ericblake/eblake.gpg
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkoT9CoACgkQ84KuGfSFAYApXACggYtsE2dYMvz0V9G4Rx3joVAc
jsMAoM0Ghq3TzEO8U1y7z3twv5jGisbm
=ECy6
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----