Subject: bug#57399: etiquette / GPL question

From: Terence Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 11:25:24 -0400 (EDT)

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I'll probably run a draft of my work by you, to offer you the opportunity 
to comment further, probably in a few weeks.

Shall I cc: Jim Meyering too?

-- Terence

On Thu, 25 Aug 2022, Paul Eggert wrote:

> On 8/24/22 22:55, Terence Kelly wrote:
>> (Plan Zero)  Write a little shell script that (a) downloads the grep-3.7 
>> tarball, (b) unpacks it, (c) applies a small patch to a single .c source 
>> file, which adds roughly ten new lines of code, (d) builds the grep 
>> executable by calling ./configure, make, and make check, (e) applies my 
>> stand-alone general-purpose Munger tool to the grep executable, and (f) 
>> runs the resulting "munged" executable to show how my Munger tool changes 
>> the behavior of grep.
>> 
>> I'm happy to apply GPL to the script described above.  My reading of GPL is 
>> that a stand-alone general-purpose tool like my Munger need not be GPL'd 
>> merely because it touches the grep executable. (I might apply a GNU license 
>> such as Affero to the Munger tool anyway; I haven't decided yet.)
>> 
>> I'd also be happy to arrange for the patch applied in step (c) above to 
>> insert a notice that the affected .c source file has been modified. 
>
> This all sounds good. One little thing: the step (3) notice must contain a 
> relevant date, as per GPL section 5(a).
>
> Thanks for asking about this.
>
>