Re: LGPL v3 compatibilty
Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> writes:
> Måns_Rullgård <mans@mansr.com> wrote:
>> Walter Landry <walter@geodynamics.org> writes:
>>
>> > Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it> wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:56:27 -0700 (PDT) Walter Landry wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it> wrote:
>> >> > > On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:31:13 -0400 Anthony Towns wrote:
>> >> > >
>> >> > > [...]
>> >> > > > Note that _if_ we do stick to the view we've taken up until now,
>> >> > > > when we have a LGPLv3 only glibc in the archive, we'll no longer
>> >> > > > be able to distribute GPLv2-only compiled executables.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Unless the GPLv2-only work copyright holder(s) add(s) a special
>> >> > > exception, similar to the one needed to link with the OpenSSL
>> >> > > library, right?
>> >> > >
>> >> > > This scenario is worrying me... :-(
>> >> >
>> >> > Is this going to be a problem for the kernel? It is definitely not
>> >> > going to go to GPLv3.
>> >>
>> >> Is the Linux kernel linked with any LGPL'd work?
>> >> AFAIUI, it is not, so no problem for the kernel.
>> >
>> > Doesn't the kernel get its implementations for pow(), sqrt(),
>> > printf(), and the rest of the C standard library from glibc, which is
>> > LGPL'd?
>>
>> No. The kernel is completely self-contained. Some code may of course
>> have been borrowed from glibc at some point, but that's irrelevant.
>
> Are you sure that it is self-contained? Grepping through the sources
> of 2.6.22.1, I do not see an implementation of <stdarg.h> or
> <stdio.h>. I do see <string.h>, and <math.h> is never included.
Inside the kernel stdio is meaningless, so I'd hardly expect to find
that header there. The only places in the kernel source where stdio.h
is included are in tools, such as kconfig, only to be used for
building the kernel or for testing purposes. This use of standard C
header files is of course completely outside the scope of any license.
As for stdarg.h, it is provided by the compiler, and generally
(including GCC) licensed without restrictions on use.
--
Måns Rullgård
mans@mansr.com
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