Re: [Xen-devel] coverage license information

[Ian Lance Taylor <iant@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:05 AM, Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> 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?

Yes.  Thanks.  It is (of course) OK to distribute in binary form if
sources are also included, or made available.

Ian

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