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Re: Licencing policy for gdb Python plugins
- From: Daniel Jacobowitz <daniel dot jacobowitz at gmail dot com>
- To: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink dot net>
- Cc: gdb at sourceware dot org
- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:18:28 -0400
- Subject: Re: Licencing policy for gdb Python plugins
- References: <4FFC2F18.9000708@tu-dresden.de> <4FFC39B3.70505@earthlink.net>
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Stan Shebs <stanshebs@earthlink.net> 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