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Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/11/27/05:18:18

Message-Id: <3.0.16.19971027110942.2b275a24@hem1.passagen.se>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 11:10:47 -0500
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: Peter Palotas <blizzar AT hem1 DOT passagen DOT se>
Subject: LIBC COPYRIGHT!
Mime-Version: 1.0

There was a discussion a while ago in this mailing-list/ng about the
copyright of some of libc's functions.  This copyright required that you
mentioned the "University of California" in your distribution even if it
only consisted of binaries, i.e. a compiled program.  So if you compile a
program with djgpp, and want to distribute it, you better follow this
copyright:

/*
 * Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California.
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
 * provided that: (1) source distributions retain this entire copyright
 * notice and comment, and (2) distributions including binaries display
 * the following acknowledgement:  ``This product includes software
 * developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors''
 * in the documentation or other materials provided with the distribution
 * and in all advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
 * software. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its
 * contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
 * from this software without specific prior written permission.
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
 * WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 */


The functions and files in libc that have this copyright are listed here:

from libc/ansi/time/ctime.c:
char *asctime(const struct tm *timeptr)
char *ctime(const time_t * const timep)
struct tm *gmtime(const time_t * const timep)
struct tm *localtime(const time_t * const timep)
time_t mktime(struct tm * tmp)
void tzset(void)
void tzsetwall(void)

from libc/ansi/stdlib/malloc.c
void free(void *cp)
void *malloc(size_t nbytes)

from libc/ansi/stdlib/qsort.c
void qsort(void *base0, size_t n, size_t size, int (*compar)(const void *,
const void *))

from libc/compat/stdlib/random.c
char  *initstate (unsigned seed, char *arg_state, int n)
long random(void)
char  *setstate(char *arg_state)
int srandom(int x)


If this copyright then includes all functions that call one of the above
functions, well, then you can almost be sure that you use one of them,
because the malloc() function would pretty much be called by all programs I
suppose.


I find the lack of information about this kind of disturbing and I am
hereby encouraging the DJGPP distributor(s) to put more info about this
more easily available.  Because I am *sure* that a LOT of people have
distributed binaries without taking any concern to the copyright mentioned
above, thereby performing an illegal act.  The libc is NOT totally free to
do whatever you want with, and this should everyone be aware about.  At the
present time you have to download the libc sources to find out about these
copyrights, and even then it takes a bit of looking.  This info really
should be available much more easily to everyone, so that nobody misses it,
or this copyright should be removed, by rewriting those functions.



-- Peter Palotas alias Blizzar -- blizzar AT hem1 DOT passagen DOT se --

*****************************************************
* A brief description of DJGPP:                     *
* NEVER BEFORE HAS SO FEW DONE SO MUCH FOR SO MANY! *
*****************************************************

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