[PATCH] gawk: disable persistent memory by default due to licensing

[PATCH] gawk: disable persistent memory by default due to licensing

[Randy.MacLeod]

From: Randy MacLeod <Randy.MacLeod@windriver.com>

In gawk-5.2, a feature that allows gawk to preserve memory between runs:
   https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/Persistent-Memory.html
was added. The files that implement this, support/pma.[ch], are licensed
under the AGPL which some entities perfer to avoid. Force people to knowingly
opt into using this feature and license.

Also add AGPL to the license to the summary.

Signed-off-by: Randy MacLeod <Randy.MacLeod@windriver.com>
---
 meta/recipes-extended/gawk/gawk_5.3.2.bb | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/meta/recipes-extended/gawk/gawk_5.3.2.bb b/meta/recipes-extended/gawk/gawk_5.3.2.bb
index 833fe78bf9..7678dc9401 100644
--- a/meta/recipes-extended/gawk/gawk_5.3.2.bb
+++ b/meta/recipes-extended/gawk/gawk_5.3.2.bb
@@ -8,12 +8,14 @@ SECTION = "console/utils"
 
 # gawk <= 3.1.5: GPL-2.0-only
 # gawk >= 3.1.6: GPL-3.0-only
-LICENSE = "GPL-3.0-only"
+LICENSE = "GPL-3.0-only & AGPL-3.0-or-later"
 LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://COPYING;md5=d32239bcb673463ab874e80d47fae504"
 
 PACKAGECONFIG ??= "readline mpfr"
 PACKAGECONFIG[readline] = "--with-readline,--without-readline,readline"
 PACKAGECONFIG[mpfr] = "--with-mpfr,--without-mpfr, mpfr"
+# Check support/pwa.c license
+PACKAGECONFIG[pma] = "--enable-pma,--disable-pma, "
 
 SRC_URI = "${GNU_MIRROR}/gawk/gawk-${PV}.tar.gz \
            file://run-ptest \
-- 
2.34.1

Re: [OE-core] [PATCH] gawk: disable persistent memory by default due to licensing

[Ross Burton]

On 12 Sep 2025, at 21:07, Randy MacLeod via lists.openembedded.org <randy.macleod=windriver.com@lists.openembedded.org> wrote:
> 
> From: Randy MacLeod <Randy.MacLeod@windriver.com>
> 
> In gawk-5.2, a feature that allows gawk to preserve memory between runs:
>   https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/Persistent-Memory.html
> was added. The files that implement this, support/pma.[ch], are licensed
> under the AGPL which some entities perfer to avoid. Force people to knowingly
> opt into using this feature and license.
> 
> Also add AGPL to the license to the summary.

If disabling that option means there’s no AGPL code in binary, then LICENSE:${PN} could be constructed based on the value of PACKAGECONFIG.

Ross