While packaging Autoconf 2.69 for Debian, I am trying to update
the copyright information in the package using the new Debian
copyright format here:
http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
In the process, I'm looking at each file in Autoconf to
understand its licensing. One file that has a confusing license
is Makefile.in. It contains one license at the top, output by
Automake:
# Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
# 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation,
# Inc.
# This Makefile.in is free software; the Free Software Foundation
# gives unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it,
# with or without modifications, as long as this notice is preserved.
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law; without
# even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
# PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
with another license below it copied from Makefile.am:
# Copyright (C) 1999-2004, 2006-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
My guess is that the overall license of Makefile.in is then the
conjunction of the two, that is, GPLv3+. At any rate, the double
license is somewhat confusing, so I'd like to hear feedback in
case I'm wrong.
Thanks,
Ben.
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