ccan code breaks older build farm systems

[tridge at samba.org]

Hi Volker/Rusty,

 > Please, please get Andrew Tridgell to comment on this.
 > You're in his timezone, so you have a much better chance to
 > catch him directly.

sorry for being late to this thread. I had assumed it was just about
build errors and I left it in my "read later" pile of emails :-)

I don't see the question of having copyright headers in each file or
per directory as being a legal issue, it is mainly a question of
clarity. We actually have a couple of places where we have a
per-directory license file now, namely the librpc/idl directory and
the lib/popt directory.

I see the lib/ccan code as being like the lib/popt and similar
directories where we have a copy of an externally maintained piece of
code in our tree. In that case we usually leave whatever conventions
that external project adopted in place, as long as we know that the
result is something that is OK legally when used as part of our code.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't make suggestions to Rusty on clarity
however. I think a one line "see LICENSE file in this directory for
license information" in the ccan code would make it a bit clearer, or
even use the shorthand for the license name, like this:

 licensed under LGPLv2.1+ - see LICENSE file for details

It would be up to Rusty if he adopts this suggestion, and I certainly
wouldn't suggest blocking the use of ccan on this basis.

Regarding the LGPLv2.x issue that Michael raised, I agree with Simo
that this is automatic, and we don't need to actually change the
license on the file. That is what I understand of the "convey code"
wording on the page that was referenced.

Cheers, Tridge