Re: [Xen-devel] coverage license information

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 04.02.13 at 17:46, Ian Lance Taylor <iant@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 6:54 AM, Frediano Ziglio
> <frediano.ziglio@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> I imported some headers from Linux kernel which mainly came from
>> gcov-io.h and the structures used internally by GCC.
>>
>> Our problem is currently about the license. In gcov-io.h is stated that
>> license is mainly GPL2 which the exception that linking the "library"
>> with other files does not cause these files to be GPL2. Now however I'm
>> not linking to any library but just using the structure declaration
>> inside the header to produce a blob that is currently converted into GCC
>> files by an external utility (Xen has not file system so we extract
>> coverage information).
>>
>> It's not a problem to use these headers/structure from Xen (which is
>> GPL2) but we'd like to have these defines in our public include headers.
>> The license however of these headers is quite open and allow to be used
>> for instance in commercial programs. How the license would affect these
>> programs?
>>
>> Another question we have is the stability of these structures. Can we
>> just check the version field of gcov_info to make sure that the internal
>> structure is not changed or is it expected that even this field would
>> change (for instance position or size inside the structure) ?
> 
> You neglected to say which version of GCC you are using.  In current
> GCC the header file gcov-io.h is under GPLv3 with the GCC Runtime
> Library Exception 3.1
> (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception-3.1.html).
> 
> I don't fully grasp the situation in which a user of xen would want to
> #include this header file.  But if a program does #include the header
> file, then in the strictest possible reading that program would be
> covered by GPLv3 plus the GCC Runtime Library Exception.  That would
> impose certain requirements on the program, basically that if it is
> compiled by a version of GCC with a proprietary extension, the program
> may not be distributed in binary form.

You probably meant "binary only form" here?

Jan

>  Those requirements already
> apply to essentially any program compiled by a current version of GCC.
>  Inciuding the header file gcov-io.h should not add any additional
> requirements.
> 
> Hope this helps.  This is of course not legal advice, but you are
> unlikely to get good legal advice in this area.
> 
> Ian
> 
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