llvm dev - Mar 2013 - [LLVMdev] [llvm-c] Copyright notice in language bindings

On Mar 13, 2013, at 6:40 AM, Moritz Maxeiner <moritzmaxeiner at
googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> If I write LLVM bindings for a language X, in which I obviously
> need to at least use parts of the llvm-c headers (constants, enums,
typedefs, function names and
> signatures) do I need to include the LLVM copyright notice?
> 
> Whereas llvm-c has multiple headers (e.g. Analysis.h, BitReader.h, Core.h,
etc.) my bindings
> only have three files constants.d, types.d and functions.d which
respectively contain all
> of the previously mentioned parts.
> This means I can't just copy-paste the copyright notice from the llvm-c
headers
> and add LLVM's license.txt as these header license notices contain the
headers' filenames
> (which do not translate to my bindings).
> So the most sensible thing would be to put the complete LLVM license at the
top of
> those three files - if that is necessary; I'm not sure if it is,
though, because since I'm not
> copy-pasting the code but adapting it to another language it may not
strictly count as redistributing
> -  especially since I don't copy any of LLVM's algorithms, but
*only* the C API itself.
> 
> Any help regarding this would be appreciated, because I have finished
writing
> the bindings but do not risk publishing them without a correct copyright
notice if it is
> needed.
Hi Moritz,

LLVM's license includes a binary redistribution clause:
http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#license

Including a note in the documentation that ships with your product (or something
similar) is enough, but you do need to acknowledge that you use llvm.

-Chris

On Mar 13, 2013, at 12:17 PM, Moritz Maxeiner <moritzmaxeiner at
googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 03/13/2013 07:26 PM, Chris Lattner wrote:
>> LLVM's license includes a binary redistribution clause:
>> http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#license
> 
> Hi Chris,
> 
> the problem with the binary redistribution clause is that the bindings will
not be linked with any part of LLVM.
> The bindings will load an LLVM shared library (dll/so/dylib) at runtime and
thus an application compiled
> with said bindings will contain no binary of LLVM (as these will seperately
resign in the shared library, which
> itself has to be distributed together with the license of course, but that
is not of a concern to the bindings, as they will
> not provide this shared library) so as far as I can tell the clause would
not apply.
> 
> Another point is that the binding themselves don't do anything other
than interfacing with LLVM and are only
> provided in source code. The binary redistribution clause would only apply
to people then in return using these
> bindings to access LLVM.
The license is very clear: obviously the dynamic library that is loaded would
have to carry the notice somehow.

If you consider inclusion of symbol names into the application binary to be a
"redistribution in binary form" of LLVM, then your application would
need to carry the notice.  I would recommend either consulting with a lawyer to
decide whether that is the case, or to just include it to be safe.
> Would something like this be appropriate then (README.md resides in the
bindings' root folder),
Something like that is fine, but you need to include the copyright notice as
stated in the license.  I'm not going to weigh in on whether (or not) the
binary is being distributed in your case, check with a lawyer.

-Chris

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