Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 09:38:28 -0700 From: "Peter Wemm" <peter@wemm.org> To: "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com> Cc: cvs-src@freebsd.org, jb@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org, cvs-all@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libdwarf Makefile _libdwarf.h dwarf.h dwarf_abbrev.c dwarf_attr.c dwarf_attrval.c dwarf_cu.c dwarf_dealloc.c dwarf_die.c dwarf_dump.c dwarf_errmsg.c dwarf_errno.c dwarf_finish.c dwarf_form.c dwarf_init.c dwarf_loc.c ... Message-ID: <e7db6d980805230938k54da7389ia9635139d9f642df@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20080521.211110.-749259186.imp@bsdimp.com> References: <200805220214.m4M2EYTM061847@repoman.freebsd.org> <20080521.211110.-749259186.imp@bsdimp.com>
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On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 8:11 PM, M. Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote: > In message: <200805220214.m4M2EYTM061847@repoman.freebsd.org> > John Birrell <jb@FreeBSD.org> writes: > : The API for this library is deliberately different to the GPL'd > : libdwarf to avoid licensing problems. > > What licensing problems does it avoid? APIs can't be copyrighted, and > therefore can't be GPL'd. > > Warner Well.. the GNU and linux folk have an interesting spin on this. They seem to maintain that if an API is specific to a GPL'ed code blob, then programs that use that specific API are therefore derivatives. There was a case a few years ago about the gmp library. They maintained that a 3rd party consumer of libgmp was a GPL violation if it wasn't distributed under GPL compatible terms. I seem to recall that the 'fgmp' (free-gmp) library came out, and a new release of the 3rd party package was made with the references in the documentation changed to something like 'uses fgmp or a fgmp-compatible library like gmp' or some such. It was all a giant circus and waste of effort, especially since fgmp wasn't really a viable gmp replacement. The next point is that the Linux folks (including Linus) seem to consider that making calls to the linux kernel causes your driver to be a derivative, unless the API you're calling has been blessed as a public interface. (To be fair, I can see the point for their specific circumstances, but their interpretation of copyright seems to be quite a stretch to me). Back to this case. There are non-GPL implementations of libdwarf out there. I think the API is well and truly fair game at this point. -- Peter Wemm - peter@wemm.org; peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5 "If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution." -- Robert Sewell
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