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Re: New GCC Runtime Library Exception
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009, Mark Mitchell wrote:
> > (But that e.g. Makefiles building the libraries
> > should use GPLv3+ without any exception, and tm.h headers should not have
> > the exception even though they provide a few macros for libgcc.)
>
> Yes, except that I think tm.h headers should have the exception too, if
> they are used in libgcc.
The tm.h headers are a lot of essentially host-side code with a few macros
such as LIBGCC2_LONG_DOUBLE_TYPE_SIZE that affect target-side code in some
cases. But if we should add the exception to over 80000 lines of code
(the amount of config/*.h and config/*/*.h headers currently under GPLv3,
which may not be the exact set of tm.h headers) for the sake of those
macros, we can of course do so.
(Ideally the host-side and target-side tm.h headers would be separate with
the latter being in the libgcc directory and only defining those macros
needed on the target side, but that's a much more involved change.)
> > Will the transition to use GPLv3+exception need to be made on release
> > branches before any more releases are made from them (so that if anyone
> > should volunteer to the SC to make any further 4.2 releases, before the
> > point at which I propose to close 4.2 branch in the absence of such a
> > volunteer, they will need to ensure the transition patch is backported)?
>
> We should just update the licenses on the trunk. The change from GPLv2
> to GPLv3 in the midst of the 4.2.x release cycle was confusing to
> people. I see no reason to do that again.
Does this mean the transition does not block 4.4 branching and if no-one
has volunteered to prepare a patch and got the patch ready by the time 4.4
branches it should just go on trunk for 4.5?
--
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com