Re: Lacking of a ref-counted string.

[Loïc Minier <lool dooz org>]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008, Colin Walters wrote:
> Another nail in the no-libvala idea's coffin is that it seems to me[1]
> it's a violation of the GPL to distribute code that doesn't build
> using the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it"
> (GPL sec 3).  In other words, generated .c files are no different from
> .jars and the like, and free OS vendors should not allow software
> which includes them.
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008, Colin Walters wrote:
> > Are you saying Yacc/Bison and lex/flex source files which generate c
> > files are also incompatible with GPL?
> Of course not; it's perfectly valid in general to have code generate
> code.  But if your build process doesn't invoke yacc or bison but just
> relies on the shipped generated .c files, that is a problem.

 It's ok to rely on the generated files to be present in tarball
 releases and to use them exclusively for building, but you have to
 provide the real source files along with the rules to generate the
 others; this could be anywhere, but it's best to keep them in the
 tarball.  (This is exactly the same thing as e.g. configure.in.)

-- 
Loïc Minier