Re: gmake's config.guess is too old

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2014, Alan Barrett wrote:
> The FSF added a licence exception for GNU bison, allowing it to 
> be used as part of the build for non-GPL software.  They might 
> be willing to do something similar for config.guess, or provide 
> a statement that it's already allowed without needing a licence 
> exception.

Almost all existing config.guess and config.sub files in the 
NetBSD src tree contain text like this:

# As a special exception to the GNU General Public License, if you
# distribute this file as part of a program that contains a
# configuration script generated by Autoconf, you may include it under
# the same distribution terms that you use for the rest of that program.

The same text appears in the latest versions from 
<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=config.git;a=blob_plain;f=config.guess;hb=HEAD> 
and 
<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=config.git;a=blob_plain;f=config.sub;hb=HEAD>.

I understand this to mean that, if you have a program that uses 
a configure script that was generated by Autoconf, then you can 
update its old config.guess and config.sub to a new version that 
has that "special exception" text, and the program's licence will 
not be affected.

--apb (Alan Barrett)