Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:27:43 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith) Cc: brett@lariat.org, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Producing non-GPLed tools for FreeBSD Message-ID: <199810192227.PAA19542@usr07.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <199810190637.XAA16847@dingo.cdrom.com> from "Mike Smith" at Oct 18, 98 11:37:10 pm
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> > I'm interested in producing some programming tools that will aid in the
> > development of code for FreeBSD. Unfortunately, when I've asked various
> > people about such things as the object and executable formats, they've all
> > told me that there was no documentation of these things, and that the best
> > way to do this was to UTSL ("Use the source, Luke!"). I was pointed, in
> > particular, to the as(1) assembler and ld(1) linker.
>
> As has been mentioned previously, the ELF object format is copiously
> described by the ELF documentation, sources for which have been posted
> here several times.
See also "man a.out".
> > Unfortunately, when I looked for the source in the 3.0-current tree, I
> > discovered, to my horror, that both programs were in the /src/gnu
> > subdirectory. This creates a problem. Technically, if I use GPLed source, I
> > must GPL the resulting product. And both as(1) and ld(1) are GPLed.
>
> Binutils uses libbfd, which unfortunately is licensed under the GPL,
> not the LGPL.
No need to really rehash this here; the statement misses the distinction
between "use" and "utilize". You can "utilize" GPL'ed code all you
want.
> > If I'm going to start doing language compilers (and an optimizing
> > assembler) for FreeBSD, I need descriptions of the object format,
> > executable format, register usage conventions, parameter passing
> > conventions, and library conventions that are independent of any GPLed
> > code. How can I obtain these? These would also be required by any
> > commercial developer (say, Green Hills, Borland, or Watcom) who wished to
> > develop tools for FreeBSD, so they wouldn't just be for MY benefit; they're
> > necessary to open up the tools market to ANYONE other than the FSF.
The main issue is the assmebler. For a compiler that can produce
ELF code, and which is under a BSD-style license, do a net search on
"TenDRA".
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
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