From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 29852 invoked by alias); 11 Jul 2012 12:18:46 -0000 Received: (qmail 29834 invoked by uid 22791); 11 Jul 2012 12:18:43 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-3.6 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,FREEMAIL_FROM,KHOP_RCVD_TRUST,KHOP_THREADED,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW,RCVD_IN_HOSTKARMA_YE X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mail-bk0-f41.google.com (HELO mail-bk0-f41.google.com) (209.85.214.41) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:18:30 +0000 Received: by bkcjc3 with SMTP id jc3so903541bkc.0 for ; Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:18:28 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.152.135.200 with SMTP id pu8mr48605610lab.8.1342009108623; Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:18:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.112.67.5 with HTTP; Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:18:28 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4FFC39B3.70505@earthlink.net> References: <4FFC2F18.9000708@tu-dresden.de> <4FFC39B3.70505@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:18:00 -0000 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Licencing policy for gdb Python plugins From: Daniel Jacobowitz To: Stan Shebs Cc: gdb@sourceware.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2012-07/txt/msg00024.txt.bz2 On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Stan Shebs wrote: > On 7/10/12 3:33 PM, Joachim Protze wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> while the discussion in the last session of the GNU cauldron, the >> question raised, whether there is a licencing policy for Python plugins, >> as there is a quite strict policy for gcc plugins. As no one in the >> audience had an opinion to this question, I think the gdb developers >> attended the other track. Searching the wiki, the mailinglist and the >> web I did not find any hints for a policy. Is there any policy or >> recommendation? >> > > Sorry, some of us were off in a different room and didn't notice the time! > > In any case, I don't recall much thought about a GDB plugin licensing > policy, but I imagine there would have to be a pretty strong rationale for > it to differ from the GCC policy. Well, the GCC policy is very compiler-specific and frankly ugly; it is designed to prevent use of the GPL'd frontend with a non-GPL backend inserted as a "plugin", or third-party non-GPL optimizers. It does this by means of clauses in the libgcc and other runtime licenses, which can only be used as GPL if a non-GPL plugin was used to produce the compiler output, preventing the compilation of proprietary software. (That's how I remember it anyway - check primary sources). I'd rather see something looser for GDB, where plugins are more consumers than contributors, but I haven't thought about it that much. > > Stan Shebs > stan@codesourcery.com > -- Thanks, Daniel