Hello list,

I am not sure if android-platform@ is the right place to discuss licensing terms in Android or not. Please ignore the post if it was mistaken.

Recently, we at Linaro are trying to integrate gcc-linaro[1] into Android build system as the optional toolchain optimized for latest ARM cores. We encounter some unknown prelinker issues, and it is an opportunities for us to look into the implementations of relevant utilities in Android. However, I am a bit confused about the licensing terms of some packages.

libelfcopy[2], derived from some parts in binutils, provides the facilities about DWARF/ELF, and it is quite obvious that libelfcopy is licensed under GNU GPL version 2+ as the file "MODULE_LICENSE_GPL" denotes. There are three system tools depending on libelfcopy: - isprelinked - soslim - apriori

build/tools$ grep -r libelfcopy * apriori/Android.mk:LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := libelfcopy libelf libebl #dl isprelinked/Android.mk:LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := libelfcopy libelf libebl libebl_arm #dl soslim/Android.mk:LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := libelfcopy libelf libebl libebl_arm #dl

These tools are linking libelfcopy statically, which explicitly complies with the licensing terms of GNU GPL. But, after checking the source files (*.[ch]), no license term is claimed.[3] The proper declaration should put file "MODULE_LICENSE_GPL" into individual directories at least.

Is my understanding correct?

Sincerely, Jim Huang Android Team, Linaro

[1] https://launchpad.net/gcc-linaro [2] http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/elfcopy.git%3Ba=summary [3] http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/build.git%3Ba=summary