Re: Licencing issues (Was: Re: posix standards? $(CURDIR) or $$PWD or $(shell pwd)?)

[gk]

At 04:47 PM 10/11/2002 -0400, Paul D. Smith wrote:
> %% gk <address@hidden> writes:
>
>   g> One of my concerns is licensing: If my product uses
>   g> Gnu-make-specific features in its Makefiles will it be considered
>   g> 'derivative' and bound by the GPL?
>
> No, definitely not.  In the same way that if you write your code using
> Emacs, or compile it with GCC, or run it using bash as your shell, it
> does not become bound by the GPL, so controlling your builds with GNU
> make does not bind whatever's built with the GPL .

What if I write an interface to Gnu make that 'extends' its functionality?

In my case, my 'product' is not so much the output of make as the INTERFACE 
and tools for generating and managing Makefiles.

The XmlMake system adds an abstraction layer of relationships between file 
types, source files, output files, targets and rules.
It is a generalized system, but the initial motivation is for supporting 
document generation from template files.

The template files have a syntax that indicates dependence on other data 
files to be merged.
The data files to be merged are compiled from XML and also have a syntax 
which can indicate dependencies on other files (which may have further 
nested dependencies). XmlMake automatically detects dependencies, based on 
file types, checks for circularity, generates all the necessary makefiles 
and sets environmental variables which list the  targets to be built by the 
default rule and list the files to be included in the 'master' Makefile for 
an entire project.

I can give more detail if you like.
If my build system depends on a feature  of Gnu make, such as the 'include' 
directive, then is it a 'derivative' work?
- Greg Keraunen <address@hidden>