Re: justify use of flex vs. lex - summary

swl26@cas.org (Steve Layten x3451) writes:
> one person ... suggested that I look at PCCTS:
> ... you can use it for commercial products without violating its notice,
> which explicitly permit use for commerical or proprietary software (both
> prohibited by bison&flex's copyright).


Just to keep the record straight (as this point often gets confused),
while bison is covered by the GPL, flex is not; it's covered by the BSD
copyright, which freely permits use in commerical and proprietary software
(so does the GPL, actually, as long as source code is made available).
Furthermore, scanners *generated* by flex are not covered by any sort of
copyright (again, unlike bison-generated parsers). You can do whatever
you like with them. So Basile's final point above is incorrect.


Vern


Vern Paxson vern@ee.lbl.gov
Systems Engineering ucbvax!ee.lbl.gov!vern
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (510) 486-7504
[For yacc users for whom the GPL is a problem, Berkeley yacc is in the
public domain, meaning you can do anything with it you want. -John]
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