Re: ELF header files

[Ralf Corsepius <ralf dot corsepius at rtems dot org>]

On 12/03/2010 03:17 PM, Sebastian Huber wrote:
> On 12/03/2010 02:53 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On 12/03/2010 02:15 PM, Sebastian Huber wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > is it possible to add some ELF header files to Newlib, or is this
> > > undesirable?
> >
> > In general, everything which relies upon machine/toolchain internals is
> > undesirable and is best avoided.
>
> The GNU C library elf.h has everything in one file (e.g. relocation types for
> various architectures).  Under BSD this architecture dependent stuff is split
> up into different files.  It is possible to merge all these files into a big one.
>
> Is it possible to use the GNU C library elf.h?  It uses GPL v2.1+.
Very clear and strict no.

The GPL doesn't allow static linkage. This would not be acceptable for 
RTEMS and also should not be acceptable for newlib.

> > One would have to see your works to be able to further comment. Any
> > further comment would be premature.
>
> Before I start to work on this, I want to be sure that Newlib is in principle
> the right place for this.

Depends on what intend to do - It's very hard to be able to comment if 
you don't tell us.

We need to be very careful about licensing and be conservative about 
adopting new code, which is outside of a libc's domain.

Ralf