Copyright issue (was: Re: libffi AMD64)

[Thomas Heller <theller at python dot net>]

Anthony Green <green@redhat.com> writes:

> On Fri, 2006-01-13 at 13:43 -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
>> They aren't really set up to be configured and built standalone, but
>> this shouldn't be overly hard for someone to do. 
>
> Here's a snapshot that should work...
>
> http://www.spindazzle.org/libffi-green.tar.gz 

I have a question.  I have permission to include the ctypes package,
which is a ffi library for Python), into the core Python SVN repository.
To avoid putting the whole Python distribution under GPL, no files
licensed under GPL can be used.

ctypes is based on libffi, and the current approach is to compile libffi
into a static library and link it into the ctypes extension module.
This is done with calls to libffi's configure and make.

Been mostly a Windows guy, I have only a limited understanding about
what configure does, and even less which files it needs.  I have looked
into the archive above, and it seems that all files except those in
libffi/testsuite have such a liberal license, or the GPL with an
exception clause.

Except for libffi/aclocal.m4.  It has several license blocks, some with,
and some without the exception clause.  Can someone clarify the license
for this file?

Anyway, another question is: Is aclocal.m4 needed at all for building
(or maybe for regenerating the configure scripts), or is it optional?

Thanks,

Thomas