Re: Automake (alpha) release request

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* NightStrike wrote on Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 03:43:44AM CET:
> On 12/17/07, Brian Dessent <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> >
> > > Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> > > > The license update can simply be temporarily reverted back to v2 (with
> > > > FSF approval).
> > >
> > > I'd like to see that as well but I doubt it will happen.
> >
> > It's not politically feasible since official GNU projects are supposed
> > to reflect the GNU project's philosophies.  I seem to recall that there
> > was a mandate that all official GNU projects were expected to use v3 for
> > any releases past some date (2007-07-31?) which means reverting to v2 is
> > not on the table.  But I could be misremembering.

That could be the case; but also, it sounded like we, for autotools,
were specifically allowed (FSF-wise) to do a release with v2+, due to
these issues.  It would mean we'd have to revert existing license
changes though.

The other small issue I have with that is, that recent contributors may
expect their code to be released under GPLv3+ with exceptions, not
GPLv2+ with exceptions.  This is not a legal issue -- the contributors
have copyright assignments in place allowing the FSF to take this step
-- but one of me not wanting to step on toes.  Sigh, I guess it's time
to start asking people about this.

> Why would they expect conformance to a policy that isn't yet ready?

Exactly.

> Also, what is the actual hold up?  Where in the pipeline is the issue
> stagnating?

At the FSF lawyers, trying to rewrite the license exceptions that are
present in autotools, so that the rewording is suitable for GPLv3+.

Cheers,
Ralf