Some files in Guix lack in-file license notice, does that make them GPL-3.0-only?

Some files in Guix lack in-file license notice, does that make them GPL-3.0-only?

[Wojtek Kosior via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.]

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Hi

at least the following files from Guix source tree

    dir-locals.el
    configure.ac
    config-daemon.ac
    bootstrap
    README

have neither copyright nor license information in them.  I believe it
prevents people from assuming that GPL v3 **or later** applies to those
files.

You know, the COPYING file in the source tree has just the text of
GPLv3.  The permission to use a later GPL version only ever appears in
the source files themselves.  But in case of the files listed above,
such extra permission is absent.  As a result, all a receiver of the
source code can assume is that the terms from the COPYING file apply
here.

What should be done to fix this?  Would it be welcome if I or someone
else reached out to the authors of those files to get a permission to
also use them under hypothetical later GPL versions?

Libre software projects are in general prone to this kind of licensing
ambiguities and FSFE's REUSE[1] specification seems like a good fix for
that.  Would a patch that makes Guix repo REUSE-compliant be welcome?

Wojtek

[1] https://reuse.software/

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Re: Some files in Guix lack in-file license notice, does that make them GPL-3.0-only?

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Freitag, dem 22.12.2023 um 17:20 +0100 schrieb Wojtek Kosior via
Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.:
> Hi
> 
> at least the following files from Guix source tree
> 
>     dir-locals.el
>     configure.ac
>     config-daemon.ac
>     bootstrap
>     README
> 
> have neither copyright nor license information in them.  I believe it
> prevents people from assuming that GPL v3 **or later** applies to
> those files.
I don't think it prevents people from assuming anything, but it may
lead people to assume that these files are not GPL'd, which may or may
not be the truth.  (There is a debate to be had to which extent you can
copyright, e.g. a dir-locals file in the first place.)

> What should be done to fix this?  Would it be welcome if I or someone
> else reached out to the authors of those files to get a permission to
> also use them under hypothetical later GPL versions?
As you point out, the proper fix would be to explicitly license them. 
This doesn't have to be the GPL, however.  For example, the FSF
recommends more permissive licenses for small amounts of text, e.g. as
typically found in READMEs.

Cheers