Re: Learning lex/yacc (was: Book- Building cocoa applications) (Mel Walker)
Re: Learning lex/yacc (was: Book- Building cocoa applications) (Mel Walker)
- Subject: Re: Learning lex/yacc (was: Book- Building cocoa applications) (Mel Walker)
- From: Michael McCracken <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 14:03:29 -0700
I was curious, so I went looking about this. They don't seem to have
changed it to LGPL, but there is a section in the manual that
specifically allows use of Bison output in non-"free" software. (not
free-as-in-speech - software that is not under the GPL, regardless of
cost)
So, feel free to use it for anything.
- mike
For reference, from the latest online version of the bison manual, at:
http://www.gnu.org/manual/bison/html_mono/bison.html#Conditions :
Conditions for Using Bison
As of Bison version 1.24, we have changed the distribution terms for
yyparse to permit using Bison's output in nonfree programs. Formerly,
Bison parsers could be used only in programs that were free software.
The other GNU programming tools, such as the GNU C compiler, have
never had such a requirement. They could always be used for nonfree
software. The reason Bison was different was not due to a special
policy decision; it resulted from applying the usual General Public
License to all of the Bison source code.
The output of the Bison utility--the Bison parser file--contains a
verbatim copy of a sizable piece of Bison, which is the code for the
yyparse function. (The actions from your grammar are inserted into
this function at one point, but the rest of the function is not
changed.) When we applied the GPL terms to the code for yyparse, the
effect was to restrict the use of Bison output to free software.
We didn't change the terms because of sympathy for people who want to
make software proprietary. Software should be free. But we concluded
that limiting Bison's use to free software was doing little to
encourage people to make other software free. So we decided to make
the practical conditions for using Bison match the practical
conditions for using the other GNU tools.
On Tuesday, September 10, 2002, at 01:19 PM,
email@hidden wrote:
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 12:17:55 -0600
Subject: Re: Learning lex/yacc (was: Book- Building cocoa applications)
From: Mel Walker <email@hidden>
To: email@hidden
On Tuesday, September 10, 2002, at 11:33 AM, Ondra Cada wrote:
On Tuesday, September 10, 2002, at 04:50 , Jonas Roel wrote:
now that you brought it up which would you recommend lex/yacc or
bison?
flex/bison of course. Not only they are better; moreover, they are
standard part of Mac OS X ;)
Unless you want to sell your application. My understanding is that
bison "infects" your app with the GNU license, unless they've gone to
LGPL without letting me know personally. :-)
Just something to be aware of.
--
Mel Walker <email@hidden>
Software Engineer
--
Michael McCracken
email@hidden
http://disco.ucsd.edu/blog
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