macros: Changes to 'master'

[Jeremy Huddleston]

On Jun 1, 2011, at 6:29 AM, Dan Nicholson wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 5:34 AM, Mark Kettenis <mark.kettenis at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> 
>> Many people object to the version 3 of the GPL.  This includes
>> companies like Apple, projects like FreeBSD and OpenBSD, the primary
>> author of the Linux kernel, etc. etc, each for their own reason.  My
>> personal reason is that I don't understand the license anymore.  GPLv2
>> is written in normal language; GPLv3 is full of lawyer speak.
> 
> This is just in the license of the build infrastructure, and doesn't
> extend to the code it's being used with. Do you object to installing
> newer GPLv3 versions of autoconf or are you worried it will infest the
> code?

Just to clarify autoconf's license matrix a bit:

2.61 is the last pure-GPLv2 version
2.62 is the first version that included GPLv3 tools to build autoconf, but the installed bits were all GPLv2
2.65 is the first version to be completely GPLv3

In order to use 2.62, I would need to build it.  In order to build it, I would have to accept GPLv3 (which is not acceptable).

In order to use 2.65, I would need to accept GPLv3 (which is not acceptable). 

The files generated by autoconf (ie ./configure) are not GPL'd.

If newer autoconf becomes required, I can continue to use the configure scripts generated by someone else, but I won't be able to build them myself (ie: I'll be forced to use tarballs and patches rather than git).