GPL3 Re: packaging

[Glynn Clements]

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 12:28:46AM +0000, Colin Guthrie wrote:
> > Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > > I may have fallen off on a curve, here, but if the issue is "does using
> > > a GPLd tar utility to package our non-GPL package have any effect at
> > > all on its licensing?", I'm pretty sure the answer is "no".
> > 
> > I'm 100% sure the answer is "no".
> > 
> > The GPL has to end somewhere and to take this to it's logical conclusion
> > it would effectively state that writing a document in a GPL word
> > processor would mean that the docs you write in it would also have to be
> > GPL... or a GPL IDE to write programs that are non GPL etc.....  neither
> > of which is the case (unless I've *really* misinterpreted things!)
> 
> Except for Bison, for good reasons that I understand.

FWIW, bison >= 2.2 has essentially the same exception as gcc etc
regarding code which is copied into the output:

/* As a special exception, you may create a larger work that contains
   part or all of the Bison parser skeleton and distribute that work
   under terms of your choice, so long as that work isn't itself a
   parser generator using the skeleton or a modified version thereof
   as a parser skeleton.  Alternatively, if you modify or redistribute
   the parser skeleton itself, you may (at your option) remove this
   special exception, which will cause the skeleton and the resulting
   Bison output files to be licensed under the GNU General Public
   License without this special exception.

For versions between 1.24 and 2.2, the exception only applies to
LALR(1) parsers using C (i.e. not GLR parsers or C++ parsers).

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>