Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 12:00:45 -0700 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Producing non-GPLed tools for FreeBSD Message-ID: <199810191900.MAA00611@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 19 Oct 1998 10:11:23 MDT." <4.1.19981019100241.0677ace0@mail.lariat.org>
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> At 11:37 PM 10/18/98 -0700, Mike Smith wrote: > > >As has been mentioned previously, the ELF object format is copiously > >described by the ELF documentation, sources for which have been posted > >here several times. > > Unfortunately, I'm not a full-time subscriber to "hackers," so I > haven't seen them. Could you send a pointer or two off-list? As Warner suggested, check on Sunsite. I'm pretty sure that's where it was claimed to be. > >> Unfortunately, when I looked for the source in the 3.0-current tree, I > >> discovered, to my horror, that both programs were in the /src/gnu > >> subdirectory. This creates a problem. Technically, if I use GPLed source, I > >> must GPL the resulting product. And both as(1) and ld(1) are GPLed. > > > >Binutils uses libbfd, which unfortunately is licensed under the GPL, > >not the LGPL. > > What sorts of routines does libbfd contain? (I'm intentionally not > looking at stuff until I can determine that I won't be "contaminated" > by doing so.) libbfd is the binary file descriptor library; it contains primitives for reading and writing the various file formats that binutils supports. as, ld and ar all use it for manipulating their files. > >> Thus, without descriptions of the output formats that do not require me to > >> read the source code, I can't produce tools that I am 100% sure can be > >> licensed under the Berkeley license and/or sold as commercial products. > > > >Since such documentation exists, you're safe here. You can also > >consult with the relevant experts, who can give you uninfected advice. > > That would be useful. What about the intermediate formats, though? In > order to link statically with library files or third party code, I'll > need to be able to deal with the object format. ELF objects are documented int the ELF documentation. > >If you obtain this > >specification without looking at the code (eg. by conversing with > >someone else who has done the work) then you're almost certainly clean > >(this is the standrd 'clean room' methodology). > > That's what I'd like to do. Better still, it'd be nice if there were > some docs.... Even Microsoft documents things like its object format > and register models! That's why I was so startled to find out that there > was no way to get this information for FreeBSD without reading GPLed code. I suspect that Cygnus may have some documentation on the behaviour of GCC on the i386. You would have to talk to them about that. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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