Re: Potential Licensing Problem in binutils-2.29/gas/config/tc-alpha.c

[Ian Lance Taylor]

"Fendt, Oliver" <address@hidden> writes:

> I think there is a potential licensing problem in the file
> binutils-2.29/gas/config/tc-alpha.c
>
> The license information in the beginning of the files says that this
> file is licensed under GPL-3.0+ ; below this information the CMU
> License is listed. This suggests that the file itself stays under
> GPL-3.0 and CMU.
> The CMU has among others wording that reads:
>
> Carnegie Mellon requests users of this software to return to
>
> ??? Software Distribution Coordinator? or? address@hidden
> ??? School of Computer Science
> ??? Carnegie Mellon University
> ??? Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890
> ? any improvements or extensions that they make and grant Carnegie the
> ?? rights to redistribute these changes.? */
>
> so it is requested that all modifications are sent back to the
> CMU. Such a requirement is not formulated in the GPL-3.0 and the
> GPL-3.0 says in section

It's only a request, not a requirement.  I don't see a problem here.

I do kind of wonder what that text is doing on an Alpha source file.  As
far as I know Mach never ran on the Alpha.  Our repository history don't
go back far enough to show where it came from.  I suppose we could ask
Richard Henderson to see if he remembers.

I also wonder how many people would notice if we just dropped Alpha
support.  They stopped selling Alpha machines ten years ago.

Ian