On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:05 AM, Jan Beulich <jbeul...@suse.com> wrote: >>>> On 04.02.13 at 17:46, Ian Lance Taylor <i...@google.com> wrote: >> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 6:54 AM, Frediano Ziglio >> <frediano.zig...@citrix.com> 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
