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2.8 Copyright

Most modules are under the GPL. Some, mostly modules which can reasonably be used in libraries, are under LGPL. Few modules are under other licenses, such as LGPLv2+, unlimited, or public domain.

If the module description file says "GPL", it means "GPLv3+" (GPLv3 or newer, at the licensee’s choice); if it says "LGPL", it means "LGPLv3+" (LGPLv3 or newer, at the licensee’s choice).

The source files, more precisely the files in lib/ and build-aux/, are under a license compatible with the module’s license. Most often, they are under the same license. But files can be shared among several modules, and in these cases it can happen that a source file is under a weaker license than noted in the module description – namely under the weakest license among the licenses of the modules that contain the file.

Different licenses apply to files in special directories:

modules/

Module description files are under this copyright:

Copyright © 20XX–20YY Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, in any medium, are permitted without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.

m4/

Autoconf macro files are under this copyright:

Copyright © 20XX–20YY Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file 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.

tests/

If a license statement is not present in a test module, the test files are under GPL. Even if the corresponding source module is under LGPL, this is not a problem, since compiled tests are not installed by “make install”.

doc/

Documentation files are under this copyright:

Copyright © 2004–20YY Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html.

If you want to use some Gnulib modules under LGPL, you can do so by passing the option ‘--lgpl’ to gnulib-tool. This will ensure that all imported modules can be used under the LGPL license. Similarly, if you want some Gnulib modules under LGPLv2+ (Lesser GPL version 2.1 or newer), you can do so by passing the option ‘--lgpl=2’ to gnulib-tool.

Keep in mind that when you submit patches to files in Gnulib, you should license them under a compatible license. This means that sometimes the contribution will have to be LGPL, if the original file is available under LGPL. You can find out about it by looking at the license header of the file.