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

[peter.moldave at gesmer.com]

The exception in Bison is necessary because of this clause.  This clause
does not (in my opinion) give you enough comfort to say a program that
inserts itself in the source code.  The reason I believe this is because of
the following FAQ on the fsf web site:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF

Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free
programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
      Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover
      the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions,
      legally, on the license you use for your code.


      Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical
      reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its
      output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered
      by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the
      part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits
      the copyright status of the input.


      As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs.
      This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison
      standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We
      made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison
      which already permitted use for non-free programs.

The part of the second paragraph that says "the copied text in the output
is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code" is what I
am referring to.  If there is GPL-covered source code copied into the
output by the parser/compiler/etc, I think the output is subject to the GPL
at some level....

Peter M. Moldave
Gesmer Updegrove LLP
40 Broad Street
Boston, MA 02109
617-531-8340 (direct)      617-350-6800 (main number)
617-531-8390 (direct fax)  617-350-6878 (main fax)
peter.moldave at gesmer.com
http://www.gesmer.com


|---------+--------------------------->
|         |           Alex Bligh      |
|         |           <alex at alex.org.u|
|         |           k>              |
|         |                           |
|         |           06/30/2005 09:13|
|         |           AM              |
|         |           Please respond  |
|         |           to Alex Bligh   |
|         |                           |
|---------+--------------------------->
  >--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                                                                                                                                                  |
  |        To:      Alex Bligh <alex at alex.org.uk>, peter.moldave at gesmer.com                                                                          |
  |        cc:      License Discuss <license-discuss at opensource.org>, Matthew Seth Flaschen <superm40 at comcast.net>, Alex Bligh <alex at alex.org.uk>    |
  |        Subject: Re: For Approval: Open Vendor Public License (OVPL) and Open Vendor Lesser Public License (OVLPL)                                |
  >--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|






--On 30 June 2005 14:00 +0100 Alex Bligh <alex at alex.org.uk> wrote:

>> Perhaps you are thinking about the exception to the Bison product:
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_mono/bison.html#Conditions
>
> That wasn't the one I was thinking of (I'm pretty sure it was
> in one of the licenses itself), but it is exactly the same problem.

I've found it - it's in the GPL after all (doh) - the bracketed bit
in:
             "Output from the Program is covered only if its contents
constitute
             a work based on the Program (independent of having been made
by
             running the program). Whether that is true depends on what the
             Program does."

I think that gets someway there.

Alex


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