Re: Microcontroller Compilers (C)

Joachim Durchholz wrote:
>
> Rainer Leupers <leupers@ls12.cs.uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
> > You might have a look at our LANCE C compiler system. It comes with
> > a C frontend, a set of machine-independent optimizations, and an
> > interface to OLIVE/IBURG like backend generators.
>
> You should have mentioned that it comes with one of the most
> restrictive licenses that I have ever seen, at least for software
> from an academic background. It even includes a NDA about internals
> of the software (quote paragraph 10 of the "Research/Evaluation
> License Agreement for the LANCE Compiler System": "No technical
> information about LANCE, its tools and technology, internal
> architecture, intermediate representation, and library components
> and interfaces may be disclosed to third parties without prior
> written approval of Licensor." - even reporting experience with
> Lance would be dangerous under such a license, such a report might
> unintentionally reveal Lance internals.)


The reason is that the LANCE system is being used also for industrial
projects within a company, so we want to make sure some degree of "IP
protection" when freely distributing the software for research
purposes. If you take a look at NDAs for fully commercial software you
will see they are usually even much more restrictive.


In fact, a number of universities and research institutes have signed
that NDA without any complaints, so it doesn't seem to be a big
problem for others. Nevertheless, we will think about your comments
concerning the "restrictive" sections of the NDA.


In addition, there are some articles about LANCE publicly available,
and all material once published is of course free of any restrictions.


Best regards,


R. Leupers
--
Dr. Rainer Leupers
University of Dortmund, Computer Science 12
Otto-Hahn-Str. 16, D-44221 Dortmund, Germany
phone: +49 231 755-6151, fax: -6116, mobile: +49 177 2131146
email (office): leupers@icd.de, leupers@LS12.cs.uni-dortmund.de
email (home): rainer@leupers.de
http://ls12-www.cs.uni-dortmund.de/~leupers

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