On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, herb wrote:
Hi there. I have created a Mac OS X 10.4 package that installs Autoconf 2.61. I was wondering if it was "allowed" to have it uploaded to the ftp site. Would it break any rules, such as the fact that the Mac OS X "Installer" program is proprietary software? Even though Installer is proprietary software, the package is not software at all, and installer is just opening it. Or is there not allowed to be any proprietary software in the equation at all?
You are correct that a strict interpretation of GPL v2 does not allow GPLed software to be installed using anything other than an an open-sourced installation program which is itself licenced for re-distribution under a no more restrictive license than GPL. Many GPLed packages ignore this rule.
Red Hat's RPM is ok. Inno-Setup (for Windows) is (maybe) ok. Many others are not. The "maybe" for Inno-Setup is that it is written in a language for which only proprietary tools exist.
Bob ====================================== Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
