Am Mittwoch, 4. Juli 2012 schrieb Akim Demaille: > Hi all, Hi Akim and Brett,
> I have added Bret in CC, as he is the one to deal with licenses > and exceptions. Any progress? Thanks, Martin > > Le 3 juil. 2012 à 09:47, Martin Steigerwald a écrit : > > Please keep Cc, as I am not subscribed to help-bison or > > filebench-developers. > > > > > > > > Dear bison developers, dear FSF licensing team, dear filebench > > developers, > > > > Alex Mestiashvili and I have packaged filebench for Debian. But now I > > wonder whether we may legally distribute it. > > > > Bison uses a bison generated parser from parser_gram.y and these > > generated > > > > files are: > > | Files: parser_gram.c parser_gram.h > > | Copyright: 1984, 1989, 1990, 2000-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > > | > > | C LALR(1) parser skeleton written by Richard Stallman, by > > | simplifying the original so-called "semantic" parser. > > | > > | License: GPL-3+ with exception > > | This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify > > | […] > > | 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. > > | . > > | This special exception was added by the Free Software Foundation in > > | version 2.2 of Bison. > > > > Is this compatible with CDDL-1? > > If you fall into case one (you just "use" Bison the regular way), > yes it is (IANAL, but that was a design goal when the exception > was designed: Bison's output _can_ be used to produce proprietary > software) > > > As far as I understand CDDL-1 and GPL are not compatible, but when I read > > this special exception correctly, in the case that no new parser > > generator is done any terms, any license can be used for the resulting > > work. > > > > I asked this already on debian-legal and got an IANAL response back that > > indicates that the exception could be interpreted from its intent or its > > wording and this gives different results as to the redistributability of > > the software – see below. > > > > Dear FSF licensing team, dear bison developers, can you elaborate on > > that? > > > > If its not clearly redistributable then what changes could make it so? > > > > Thanks, > > Martin > > > > > > ---------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht ---------- > > > > Betreff: Re: filebench: bison generated parser + CDDL > > Datum: Samstag, 2. Juni 2012, 22:29:41 > > Von: Mark Weyer <m...@weyer-zuhause.de> > > An: debian-legal@lists.debian.org > > > > On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 01:45:06PM +0200, Martin Steigerwald wrote: > >> Am Montag, 7. Mai 2012 schrieb Mark Weyer: > >>> Just a quick note: If you are right about the incompatibility of CDDL-1 > >>> and GPLv3 (others on this list will know if you are), then the > >>> combined work is non-free: Its license terms discriminate against a > >>> field of endeavour, namely developing a parser generator. > >> > >> I don´t understand this. > >> > >> I understand the exception > >> > >> | 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. > >> > >> so that it allows distributing the software under any other license as > >> long as the generated parser isn´t a parser generator in itself. > >> > >> I don´t think that the parser in here is a parser generator. As far as I > >> understand parser_gram.c and parser_gram.h just parses loadable workload > >> descriptions. > > Really, parse-gram.[ch] are invisible internal details about the > implementation of Bison, that's not what we are referring to. > "Skeletons" are the templates that are in data/ (yacc.c, glr.c, > etc.) which are parameterized by bison (the executable). The > exception is designed to state that as long as you use Bison > as is, you don't have constraints. But if you modify skeletons > or Bison itself, then the GPLv3 applies without the exception > clause. > > > It is less clear than I thought. > > > > Let A be a work with a parser generated by bison and assume that A is not > > a parser generator. It appears that the exception allows the authors of > > A to place A under any license they want to, effectively overriding the > > GPL-and-exception. Suppose they choose something like the MIT license. > > Then they, or someone else, retrieves the parser skeleton (now under the > > MIT license) from A and uses it as a parser skeleton for a commercial > > parser generator B. The exception is clearly not intended to allow that. > > Reading its letter, I do not see that it actually achieves that intent. > > Skeletons are really dynamic, they are not plain files with > simple substitutions, they are "run" by M4. So this scenario > does not make sense in practice, IMHO. > > > How I read the exception on May 7, I thought that it would not be deleted > > by relicensing, but that its requirement would persist in all modified > > version of A. Which is the only way (I can see) that the exception > > achieves its intent. > > > > The true question is, of course, whether a court would judge in favour of > > the exception's letter or its intent. > > > > If it judges in favour of its intent: Taking the CDDL'ed filebench for A > > and some modified version B of A, by copyleft (of both the > > GPL-and-exception and the CDDL) we have the same license situation in B > > as in A. Now if B is as above, the exception is not applicable and thus > > (assuming that GPL and CDDL are incompatible) B is not distributable. > > Thus the combined licenses forbid distribution of (some) modified > > versions and the package is non-free. > > > > If the court judges in favour of the exception's letter, then your > > upstream can put parser_gram.c and parser_gram.h under the CDDL and > > everything is fine (You can't do that yourself, because > > A: the exception grants that right only to the creator of the larger work > > and B: if upstream does not exercise the right of the exception, then > > they do not > > > > have the right to distribute filebench under anything other than the > > GPL.) > > > > I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, et cetera. > > > > Mark Weyer > > > > -- > > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org > > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? 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