Re: FSF Policy re. inclusion of source code from other projects in GCC

[Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at integrable-solutions dot net>]

Mark Mitchell <mark@codesourcery.com> writes:

| Richard Guenther wrote:
| 
| > Remembering the patches from Joseph these were from a different part
| > of GLIBC than I imported.  I imported parts of sysdeps/ieee754/flt-32 and
| > dbl-64 which contain C implementations of C99 math intrinsics such as
| > sin and cos.  The flt-32 parts are public domain as in
| > 
| > /*
| >  * ====================================================
| >  * Copyright (C) 1993 by Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
| >  *
| >  * Developed at SunPro, a Sun Microsystems, Inc. business.
| >  * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
| >  * software is freely granted, provided that this notice
| >  * is preserved.
| >  * ====================================================
| >  */
| > 
| > while the dbl-64 parts are LGPL and so subject to the change to GPL
| > + exception.  I don't know if these parts of GLIBC are covered by RMS's
| > permission, it is probably advisable to ask.
| 
| I think that we need to ask RMS specifically about this.  Would you
| please send a message to RMS, and copy the SC list (is that address
| public?  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to give it out, ask me privately
| if you don't know it) on the mail.  Explain the situation, including
| what code you're importing and why you want an exception.
| 
| My guess is that it's OK to include the Sun code, since it's in the
| public domain.  My guess is also that, without explicit permission from
| RMS, you have to leave the LGPL on the dbl-64 code, since it doesn't
| sound like that is covered by "software floating-point emulation".  That
| means that people who linked with this library would find that the LGPL
| applies, which is contrary to our general policy that binaries produced
| by GCC are not subject to GPL/LGPL issues.  So, I think you should
| remove the dbl-64 code until this is resolved, or at least prevent it
| from being compiled by removing whatever Makefile bits compile it.  My
| experience is that it usually takes some time for RMS to grant a license
| exception, and that he may not choose to do it.

That even further clarify the issue for me.

I believe, without the change of license, libgcc-math wouold not be as
useful (to libstdc++-v3) as I understood it the previous place :-(

-- Gaby