Hi Chris, This seems to be a similar situation as for tools such as automake (which I believe is used by several Apache projects).
To the best of my knowledge (I am not a lawyer), the the copyleft clause of the GPLv3 does not impose and restrictions on the output of tools under the license. E.g. if you have a text editor published under GPLv3, the copyleft doesn't affect to the texts you have written with it. In the case of a code generator (like a compiler or like automake) you'd best check if the generated output contains anything that is licensed under the problematic license. For example, the compiler might generate a boot loader block into every application and this boot loader block might be under a copyleft license - that could be a problem. For this reason, e.g. automake has special exceptions to the GPLv3: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/exceptions.en.html If the compiler you want to use does not mention any such exceptions as part of their FAQ/license description, maybe best enter into contact with the developers and ask them. Cheers, -- Richard > On 9. Jan 2019, at 15:53, Christofer Dutz <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I just double checked the text on the GPLv3 compatibility. > Stupid thing is the problem I’m having isn’t really covered by that [1]. > > The case I’m currently having is that there is a toolset called Kaitai [2], > which sounds interesting for the Apache PLC4X project. > In general you define a data-format and have it generate model, serializer > and parser in multiple languages (Similar to Thrift or Protobuf, but with a > focus on the transport data-format and not the model). > > This consists of a compiler and a runtime. > > The compiler generates code from sources which use the runtime libraries. > The runtime libraries are Apache 2.0 and MIT licensed, so this would be ok > The compiler however is GPLv3 … > > Now we would not be bunding the compiler and the users wouldn’t need to use > it when using PLC4X as it’s only needed in the code-generation phase of the > build. > > So before I throw the idea over board, I just wanted to double-check this > special case. > > Chris > > > > [1] https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html > [2] https://kaitai.io/ > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
