Re: [gnulib] printf for plibc

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Nils,

Nils Durner wrote:
> ich würde gerne die printf Implementierung von gnulib in plibc (libc für
> Windows) kopieren, damit wir sie für GNUnet, GNU libextractor & Co
> benutzen können.
> Ist es für Dich okay, wenn ich Deinen Code in die der LGPL unterliegende
> plibc kopiere?

[Nils is asking whether he can use gnulib's printf implementation for plibc.]

I'm CCing bug-gnulib because Paul Eggert, Eric Blake, and Jim Meyering also
contributed to it.

plibc <http://plibc.sourceforge.net/> appears to be under LGPLv2+.

The printf implementation in gnulib (modules 'printf-posix', 'fprintf-posix',
and similar) are under LGPLv3+. Part of the the code (lib/vasnprintf.c) is
under LGPLv2+, but other parts (the modules 'fpucw', 'isnanl-nolibm',
'frexpl-nolibm', ...) are under LGPLv3+.

You can include this code in your plibc if, at the same time, you change
the license of plibc from LGPLv2+ to LGPLv3+.

Technically, it would be a lot of work to do this by hand. The easiest way
is to invoke gnulib-tool through
  $ gnulib-tool --import [some other options] --lgpl \
                fprintf-posix printf-posix snprintf-posix sprintf-posix \
                vfprintf-posix vprintf-posix vsnprintf-posix vsprintf-posix

Please read the gnulib manual if you want to know more about how to integrate
parts of gnulib into your package.

Note also that the printf of gnulib assumes a rudimentary working printf in the
system library. It delegates directives like %d, %u, or %s to the system's
printf.

Bruno