Re: licensing

[cgd at broadcom dot com]

At Mon, 9 Sep 2002 20:46:53 +0000 (UTC), "J. Johnston" wrote:
> Yes, you can use newlib in a commercial product.  Nearly all of the code
> is under BSD-style licensing.  If you look at COPYING.NEWLIB (top level
> directory) you will see the various licenses.  

and if you look carefully, you'll see a catch-all:

(10) Unless otherwise stated in each remaining newlib file, the remaining
files in the newlib subdirectory are governed by the following copyright.
[ ... ]

I.e., if you want to be "safe", you need to look at all of the files
you're using.


> You are not required to ship source code, but if you do, you must preserve 
> the notices in the source you use from newlib.  This is relatively easy
> to do as it requires no action on your part.  In your binary distribution,
> include a copy of COPYING.NEWLIB.

... and further, if you actually look at all of the files that you're
probably using...

You'll find that that is not actually sufficient, since COPYING.NEWLIB
does not actually include all of the appropriate licenses on files in
the newlib source tree.


> In your documentation, you need to acknowledge the Copyright/license owners.
> Basically, just reproduce the pertinent licenses from COPYING.NEWLIB 
> at the end of your docs.

Same problem as above.


Unfortunately, it looks like COPYING.NEWLIB has not been kept up to
date as new files with different licenses have been added to newlib,
so the simple instructions given above are not currently adequate.




cgd