For Approval: Open Vendor Public License (OVPL) and Open Vendor Lesser Public License (OVLPL)

[mdpoole]

Alex Bligh writes:

> I've been looking around for how this was solved before.
>
> I remember reading a license which has a specific carve-out where the
> licensed product is a compiler, to ensure that object code produced
> by the compiler wasn't subject to the terms of the license, even though
> (because of the way compilers work) it technically included bits of
> the compiler's object code (i.e. small chunks of instructions).
>
> I'm pretty sure it was in an OSI approved license, but I can't find
> the thing.
>
> Any ideas?

As Peter Muldave showed, add-ons to the GPL and LGPL are used by the
FSF in several components of the GNU system.  For example, libstdc++
version 3 is GPL plus this additional grant:

   As a special exception, you may use this file as part of a free software
   library without restriction.  Specifically, if other files instantiate
   templates or use macros or inline functions from this file, or you compile
   this file and link it with other files to produce an executable, this
   file does not by itself cause the resulting executable to be covered by
   the GNU General Public License.  This exception does not however
   invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by
   the GNU General Public License.

Part of libgcc (a library automatically linked by gcc into some
executables) from gcc 4.0 is GPL plus this grant:

    As a special exception, if you link this library with other files,
    some of which are compiled with GCC, to produce an executable,
    this library does not by itself cause the resulting executable to
    be covered by the GNU General Public License.  This exception does
    not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file
    might be covered by the GNU General Public License.

Part of glibc (libio.h) has a similar exception to the LGPL, although
it seems without effect since the file is generally only used within
glibc's implementation of the standard C I/O interface.  The language
seems tailored to the expected uses of the libraries; the language for
libgcj (which provides Java runtime support) also differs because of
Java's design differences from C and C++.

Michael Poole