<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 4:56 AM, Peter Johansson <<a href="mailto:trojkan@gmail.com">trojkan@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi Brian and Dan,<div class="im"> On 5/24/10 10:47 PM, Dan Nicholson wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 7:30 PM, Brian Cameron<<a href="mailto:brian.cameron@oracle.com" target="_blank">brian.cameron@oracle.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> pkg-config team: I notice that pkg-config 0.24 contains a COPYING file that says the license is now GPLv3. Version 0.23 was GPLv2. Was this change intentional? It may not have been since I know that automake will generate a GPLv3 COPYING file by default if one does not exist in the module already. So, depending on which version of automake you use, you can end up with different licenses if the COPYING file is generated. </blockquote> Tollef can tell you for sure, but it looks like this is the automake included COPYING file in my source tree. $ ls -l COPYING lrwxrwxrwx. 1 dan dan 32 2010-05-24 12:34 COPYING -> /usr/share/automake-1.11/COPYING </blockquote></div> That looks like the COPYING files is not committed to the version control system. Automake encourages everyone to do so because of the problem Brian already indicated. Automake will create a file COPYING (or a symbolic link) if it doesn't already exist. However, which version of COPYING does depend on which Automake is used. Form NEWS of Automake 1.11: - `automake --add-missing' will by default install the GPLv3 file as COPYING if it is missing. It will also warn that the license file should be added to source control. Note that Automake will never overwrite an existing COPYING file, even when the `--force-missing' option is used. The COPYING included in the distributed tarball will consequently depend on which version of Automake the releaser uses. </blockquote><div> If I'm not mistaken, all the contributors of a project must agree of the change of the licence, whatever automake does (though i'm not 100% sure about the specific case GPL2 -> GPL3 change). Indeed,automake may change COPYING, INSTALL, etc..., it is the one who committed that file who is responsible of the change of the licence, not automake. Vincent Torri </div></div>