Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:26100 comp.misc:8239 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!snorkelwacker!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.misc Subject: Re: Legal uses of lex & yacc Message-ID: Date: 20 Feb 90 16:26:17 GMT References: <90049.104719MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 32 In-reply-to: MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET's message of 18 Feb 90 15:47:19 GMT In article <90049.104719MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET> MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET (Jim McCabe) writes: | I've recently become familiar with lex and yacc, and am wondering about | the legal status of the code generated by these programs. Is it legal to | use a yacc-generated compiler (and a lex-generated lexical analyzer) | for part of a public-domain software package? For example, if I used lex | and yacc in a language interpreter I wrote, would it be permissable to | distribute my program freely over networks and such? In the Sun lex and | yacc manuals, they never mention this at all, so I'm worried. ;) I don't know about Berkeley Unix, but System V.2 changed the license agreement such that the output of lex and yacc does not require a UNIX license, and may be distributed freely. To actually run lex and yacc, still requires a UNIX licence. I believe, but have no direct knowledge that Berkeley Yacc's output can be used without an AT&T derived licence. Bison from the Free Software Foundation (bison is a yacc replacement) does require that anything using bison, be subject to the same terms that bison is (the copyleft) -- basically where the full source must be available (not necessarily free), and that you can't place redistribution rights on third parties who get either your source or binaries. I don't know what the terms for FLEX (the faster lex) are. -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA Catproof is an oxymoron, Childproof is nearly so