[go-nuts] Plan9/inferno files - how does license compatibility work?

Part of the gc compiler tools--6g, 6a, 6l--are under the Inferno
license, which is a BSD-style license. It's not quite accurate to say
"the toolchain is used only in building gc itself;" gc itself is the
toolchain. The runtime is written in both C and Go, but is in any
case entirely under the Go BSD-style license, not the Inferno license.
The Inferno license only covers the Go compiler, it does not cover
any programs written in Go.

Ian

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On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 10:41 PM, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
<snip>
<snip>

Thanks. May be a small nit pick. From the source header, seems like gc for
all supported archs use inferno parts.
- arm (5.c, 5db.c, 5obj.c)
- x64 (6.c, 6obj.c)
- x86 (8.c, 8db.c, 8obj.c)
- few additional files common to all arch
(access.c, executable.c, linux.c, machdata.c,
map.c, obj.c, setmach.c, swap.c, sym.c)

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Yes, that's true. Ian was using the list as examples, not as an
exhaustive enumeration.

If you wonder about a specific file, read the notice at the top of
that file: we were careful to mark each with its provenance. As those
per-file notices explain, each file we used is available under some
MIT- or BSD-like license. Although the details vary by file, all are
compatible with Go's BSD license.

Of course, many other files in the Plan 9 and Inferno distribution are
not available under MIT- or BSD-like licenses. We did not use those
files.

Russ

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