Request to copy-paste configure.ac

[serkor1]

Hi @eddelbuettel,

I have spent a couple of weeks trying to implement a configure.ac in my repository which uses OpenMP - and I just haven't managed to get it up and running on MacOS. See for example serkor1/SLmetrics#90, serkor1/SLmetrics#47 and serkor1/SLmetrics#45.

Long story short - I've tried your configure.ac locally on my spare Macbook - and (to nobody's surprise) it works like a charm. And I was wondering if I could "steal" the OpenMP-section of your file? It is listed as GPL-2, but has a copyright notice on it - so I am not sure how to proceed honestly. I did not want to copy-paste it without asking you, or copy-paste it and just list you as a contributor (in case you really didn't want to be affiliated with the repository).

So anyways - can I modify and use it in my repository? And other than my sincere gratefulness, is there anything else I can offer in return?

Best,

[eddelbuettel]

Howdy -- yes configure.ac is a bit of an art. I also learned a lot from others -- including Kurt Hornik from the R Core team who was very kind when I started with this 20+ years ago and needed it for RQuantLib -- and borrowed as needed. The one in data.table was also helpful to me many years ago (esp on the need to call install_name_tool). Now, Open Source means you can take it and do not have to ask but it usually also means you have to respect the copyright and licensing terms. So ideally if mine is GPL (>= 2) it is tricky to stick this into a BSD or MIT-licensed package. But as yours is GPL-3 as well there is no issue. I often try to remember to put a courtesy line a la 'borrowed with love from xyz' or 'adapted from project xyz'. Theses serves both as provenance -- should you or someone else study the file in the future it is a reminder -- and act as a polite tip-of-the-hat.

And we all just pay it forward.

No action needed so I just close, ok?