License for code which generates code

Andy stude.list at googlemail.com
Sat Jul 19 13:07:34 UTC 2008


edA-qa mort-ora-y wrote:
> Anybody ever see this special wording/clause for Bison?

According to
<http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_mono/bison.html#Conditions>
it would appear the special clause is placed into Bison's output file.
Having never used Bison I can't be sure.

If you download the Bison source and look at the file
examples/calc++/calc++-parser.cc you'll find the following beneath the
GPL license grant:

> /* As a special exception, you may create a larger work that contains
>    part or all of the Bison parser skeleton and distribute that work
>    under terms of your choice, so long as that work isn't itself a
>    parser generator using the skeleton or a modified version thereof
>    as a parser skeleton.  Alternatively, if you modify or redistribute
>    the parser skeleton itself, you may (at your option) remove this
>    special exception, which will cause the skeleton and the resulting
>    Bison output files to be licensed under the GNU General Public
>    License without this special exception.
> 
>    This special exception was added by the Free Software Foundation in
>    version 2.2 of Bison.  */

I think that license only applies to the parser skeleton, not the rest
of Bison.

Andy



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