The license contained in COPYING is the Lesser GPL (LGPL 2.1), whereas the sources comment headings state that the software is released under the Library GPL (LGPL 2.0) or later. This is only a consistence problem, since the two licenses are, in fact, the same. I believe that the COPYING file should be updated with the text from LGPL 2.0, available at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/Licenses/COPYING.LIB-2.0.
Created attachment 4657 [details] [review] COPYING: use the text from the Library GPL 2.0 This patch updates the licensing information. It assumes that the licensing information from the source files is the correct one. The dependency on #5933 is needed to make the ChangeLog patch apply cleanly.
COPYING is automatically generated from the autotools, so tends to include whatever propagada RMS wants it to. I'm not that bothered but, given a choice, I'd prefer to call it _Library_ than _Lesser_. It's the same license, and the purpose of _Lesser_ is just to say "We don't like this even if you do.". However, I won't give it a moment's thought if you do it the other way around.
Any opinions on this murray? It seems that the text of the licenses are identical, only the names and version numbers are different. But technically the 'Lesser GPL' is the successor to the 'Library GPL'. Should we just include the Library GPL license or change all of the code comments to reference the 'Lesser GPL'?
For some strange reason, I didn't receive your comment by email. (In reply to comment #2) > COPYING is automatically generated from the autotools, so tends to include > whatever propagada RMS wants it to. Just tested this with automake 1.4: it is automatically copied only if it is missing, otherwise the autotools do not touch it[1], and it can be safely updated/modified/customized: see for example Cairo's COPYING :-) [1] Side note: usually LGPL'd projects contain COPYING.LIB, but automake 1.4 is dumb enough to bring its own COPYING even when COPYING.LIB is present. > I'd prefer to call it _Library_ than _Lesser_. It's the same license Yes, and since (I believe) it's the source that matters, the software is already under the Library GPL. Correcting COPYING is only a matter of consistency.
(I didn't get murray's response via email either -- thus the question directed to him after he had already replied. I should really read more closely) That sounds fine to me. I'll commit with the 'Library' license just to make things consistent.
committed to CVS. Thanks.
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