GNU General Public License v2.0 or later with Autoconf exception 2.0

Also known as GNU General Public License v2.0 or later with Autoconf exception 2.0, GPL-2.0+ with Autoconf exception, GPL-2.0-or-later WITH Autoconf-exception-2.0, GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0, GPLv2 or later with Autoconf exception.

Commercial use: allowed
Share alike: required
Attribution: required (keep the copyright and license notices)

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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0

Permissions

Charge distribution fee from the text
Commercial use from the text
Derivative works from the text
Derive from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Modification notice from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code from the text
Display from the text
Distribute from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code from the text
Excepted combination from the text
Modified works from the text
Modify from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Modification notice from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code from the text
Present from the text
Reproduce from the text

Prohibitions

Change license from the text

License-wide duties

Share alike from the text

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

Promote by default rule (adopted)

This license says nothing about Promote, and the graph applies this reading in all jurisdictions it covers: it is not permitted unless the license permits it.

A licence that says nothing about endorsement is read as not allowing it: the licence gives the licensee no right to use the licensor's name or marks in a way that states or implies that the licensor endorses the licensee or its product, while stating truthfully that a work is based on or uses the licensed work is a different act that this rule does not decide. A copyright licence grants rights in the work, and the right to use a name or a trademark is a separate right under trademark law and the protection of names, which a silent copyright licence does not pass on. Combining a licence that is silent about endorsement with one that permits it shows a conflict marked as coming from this rule.

Basis Trademark and name rights are separate from copyright: Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 article 9 lets the proprietor of an EU trade mark prevent all third parties not having his consent from using the sign in the course of trade, and Directive (EU) 2015/2436 article 10, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and 1125(a), section 12 BGB and section 43 ABGB protect marks and names in the same way. The library's evidence is Creative Commons 4.0 section 2(b)(2): Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this Public License. A copyright licence that is silent grants no right to use the licensor's name or marks to suggest endorsement (Worldwide)

Further terms

These are the things the license says about itself beyond the acts it permits, forbids and requires: when it ends, how long there is to put a breach right, which law governs it, and so on. A term that comes from the DALICC vocabulary links to its definition.

Or later version option: Yes
Reciprocity scope: the Autoconf program, not the configure scripts that are its output
Terminates on breach: Yes

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

Limitation of liability

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Accepting warranty or additional liability

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

Additional clauses

As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives unlimited permission to copy, distribute and modify the configure scripts that are the output of Autoconf. You need not follow the terms of the GNU General Public License when using or distributing such scripts, even though portions of the text of Autoconf appear in them. The GNU General Public License (GPL) does govern all other use of the material that constitutes the Autoconf program. Certain portions of the Autoconf source text are designed to be copied (in certain cases, depending on the input) into the output of Autoconf. We call these the "data" portions. The rest of the Autoconf source text consists of comments plus executable code that decides which of the data portions to output in any given case. We call these comments and executable code the "non-data" portions. Autoconf never copies any of the non-data portions into its output. This special exception to the GPL applies to versions of Autoconf released by the Free Software Foundation. When you make and distribute a modified version of Autoconf, you may extend this special exception to the GPL to apply to your modified version as well, *unless* your modified version has the potential to copy into its output some of the text that was the non-data portion of the version that you started with. (In other words, unless your change moves or copies text from the non-data portions to the data portions.) If your modification has such potential, you must delete any notice of this special exception to the GPL from your modified version.

Info

Target asset types: Software
Region / jurisdiction: Worldwide
Validity: Perpetual
Source: https://spdx.org/licenses/Autoconf-exception-2.0.html
Legal code: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
This description is published under: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher: Free Software Foundation
SPDX identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later WITH Autoconf-exception-2.0 on the SPDX license list
Version: 2.0
DALICC identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0",
  "license-title": "GNU General Public License v2.0 or later with Autoconf exception 2.0",
  "spdx-id": "GPL-2.0-or-later WITH Autoconf-exception-2.0",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0> .

RDF, JSON-LD

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0"
  }
}

HTML attribution

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0" rel="license">GNU General Public License v2.0 or later with Autoconf exception 2.0</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge

Markdown

[![License: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later with Autoconf exception 2.0](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0)

HTML

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-2.0/badge.svg" alt="License: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later with Autoconf exception 2.0"></a>

Review

Written from the license text by: Giray Havur
Written on: 2026-09-22
Second review: not yet done
Record changed since this review: yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings: 15 recorded, 14 applied to the record, 0 proposed

The record models GPL version 2 or later with the Autoconf exception 2.0, the combination the older releases of GNU Autoconf carry. It keeps every statement of the GPL-2.0-or-later record and adds one permission for the configure scripts that Autoconf writes, which you need not distribute under the GPL. The condition that voids the exception for a modified Autoconf has no term and is quoted.

15 findings

info Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

File name, record identifier, IRI local name and title agree. spdx:licenseId carries the SPDX expression "GPL-2.0-or-later WITH Autoconf-exception-2.0": the base identifier, one space, WITH in capitals, one space, the exception identifier. No record in the library carried an expression before, so the SPDX mapping and the spdx route have to accept the space and the keyword.
info Rubric 1 cc:legalcode applied

cc:legalcode points at the text of the base licence, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html, because that is the licence the record models. dct:source points at the SPDX page of the exception, https://spdx.org/licenses/Autoconf-exception-2.0.html, because that is where the additional permission is published.
info Rubric 2 odrl:target applied

odrl:target is the one the base record carries: an odrl:AssetCollection of dct:type dcmitype:Software. The exception is about program files, so nothing changes.
major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

The exception reads: "As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives unlimited permission to copy, distribute and modify the configure scripts that are the output of Autoconf. You need not follow the terms of the GNU General Public License when using or distributing such scripts, even though portions of the text of Autoconf appear in them." The configure scripts are material the licence conditions no longer reach, which is the permission dalicc:exceptedCombination.
info Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

Every permission of GPL-2.0-or-later is kept, in the same place and with the same duties. An exception adds an additional permission to a licence; it never takes a granted right away.
info Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

The exception lets the combined result travel under other terms, and the vocabulary cannot say that of a part of a work. The exception says of the configure scripts: "You need not follow the terms of the GNU General Public License when using or distributing such scripts, even though portions of the text of Autoconf appear in them." A dalicc:ChangeLicense permission would say the licence of the covered work itself may be replaced, which is false and would contradict the whole-work share-alike duty. The record therefore keeps the prohibition, states the narrowed reach in dalicc:reciprocityScope and quotes the clause. Proposed term: dalicc:combinedWorkRelicensing, a permission for putting a larger work that contains the covered material under other terms.
info Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

The licence-wide cc:ShareAlike duty and the source-code, attribution and notice duties stay where the base record puts them. The exception lifts them for the output of the program, not for the program, so no duty moves.
info Rubric 6 dalicc:additionalClauses applied

The exception text is quoted verbatim as one literal, taken from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/Autoconf-exception-2.0.txt. Line breaks and the indentation of the source file are collapsed to single spaces, which is how every clause literal in the library is written; the wording is untouched. The warranty disclaimer and the liability limitation are the ones the base record quotes from the base licence.
info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction applied

cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual: the exception names no territory and no term. The termination clause of the base licence still applies, and the record says no more about it than the base record does.
gap Rubric 8 dalicc:exceptedCombination applied

The exception carves the combination out of the condition of the licence, not out of its grant. dalicc:exemptedMaterial says the opposite and is prohibited on OGL-UK-1.0, OGL-UK-2.0 and NLOD-2.0, where it means material the licence never granted. The vocabulary defines dalicc:exceptedCombination for this side of it since 2026-09-23, and the record carries it as a permission.
gap Rubric 8 dalicc:additionalClauses none

The exception is conditional on what a modified Autoconf can copy into its output: "If your modification has such potential, you must delete any notice of this special exception to the GPL from your modified version." The vocabulary has no way to say that an additional permission falls away when the licensee changes the work in a named way. Proposed term: dalicc:exceptionVoidingCondition, an annotation holding the circumstance that ends the exception.
info Rubric 9 record applied

app.services.composer.consistency_check with the default dependency graph reports 0 conflicts for this record. dalicc:exceptedCombination takes part in no dependency relation, so it neither creates nor hides one.
major Rubric 10 dalicc:variantOf applied

The base record of this variant is GPL-2.0-or-later, which this same addition creates. The model is copied from it statement for statement, so dalicc:orLaterVersionOption stays true for the clause GPL version 2 section 9 states: "If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation." dalicc:variantOf points at GPL-2.0-or-later and not at GPL-2.0-only, although the two carry the same deontic model. Both records are new, so a second reader should read them together.
info Rubric 10 record applied

The nearest siblings are GPL-2.0-or-later, which this record copies, and GPL-3.0-or-later-with-Autoconf-exception-3.0, which pairs the later licence with the later exception. The two exceptions reach the same result in different words: version 2.0 exempts the configure scripts by name, version 3.0 exempts "output of Autoconf" and defines which code counts as normally copied.
minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

dalicc:promote was prohibited and no sentence of this text supports it. The statement was the library's reading of a legal default, that a copyright licence which says nothing about endorsement grants no right to it, and it sat in 519 of 581 records as a house convention. That reading is now an adopted dalicc:DefaultRule of the core dependency graph, which supplies it to every licence that is silent about the action, so a compatibility check reaches the same answer and the record states only what the text states. Removed on 2026-09-23; see section 13 of docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

The changes since version 1 left endorsement to the default rule of the core dependency graph, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

View version 2 JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML
6 changes
- removed prohibition dalicc:promote
  
  Manual edit The endorsement prohibition rested on no sentence of the text; the default rule for endorsement now supplies it.
- changed duty cc:ShareAlike
  
  was duty cc:ShareAlike
  
  Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
- changed permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  was permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  Manual edit Its duty dalicc:modificationNotice quotes "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change."
- changed permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  was permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  Manual edit Its duty dalicc:modificationNotice quotes "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change."
- changed permission odrl:reproduce
  
  was permission odrl:reproduce
  
  Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."
- added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>
  
  Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.
Version 1

Created from the license text on 2026-09-22 (GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)).

View version 1 JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.