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 |        | 
 | <div class="doc_title">LLVM Developer Policy</div> | 
 | <ol> | 
 |   <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li> | 
 |   <li><a href="#policies">Developer Policies</a> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li><a href="#informed">Stay Informed</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#patches">Making a Patch</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#reviews">Code Reviews</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#owners">Code Owners</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#testcases">Test Cases</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#quality">Quality</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#commitaccess">Obtaining Commit Access</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#newwork">Making a Major Change</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#incremental">Incremental Development</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#attribution">Attribution of Changes</a></li> | 
 |   </ol></li> | 
 |   <li><a href="#clp">Copyright, License, and Patents</a> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li><a href="#copyright">Copyright</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#license">License</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#patents">Patents</a></li> | 
 |     <li><a href="#devagree">Developer Agreements</a></li> | 
 |   </ol></li> | 
 | </ol> | 
 | <div class="doc_author">Written by the LLVM Oversight Team</div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!--=========================================================================--> | 
 | <div class="doc_section"><a name="introduction">Introduction</a></div> | 
 | <!--=========================================================================--> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>This document contains the LLVM Developer Policy which defines the | 
 |   project's policy towards developers and their contributions. The intent of  | 
 |   this policy is to eliminate mis-communication, rework, and confusion that  | 
 |   might arise from the distributed nature of LLVM's development.  By stating  | 
 |   the policy in clear terms, we hope each developer can know ahead of time | 
 |   what to expect when making LLVM contributions.</p> | 
 |   <p>This policy is also designed to accomplish the following objectives:</p> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li>Attract both users and developers to the LLVM project.</li> | 
 |     <li>Make life as simple and easy for contributors as possible.</li> | 
 |     <li>Keep the top of Subversion trees as stable as possible.</li> | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>This policy is aimed at frequent contributors to LLVM. People interested in | 
 |   contributing one-off patches can do so in an informal way by sending them to | 
 |   the <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits"> | 
 |   llvm-commits mailing list</a> and engaging another developer to see it through | 
 |   the process.</p> | 
 |    | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!--=========================================================================--> | 
 | <div class="doc_section"><a name="policies">Developer Policies</a></div> | 
 | <!--=========================================================================--> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>This section contains policies that pertain to frequent LLVM | 
 |   developers.  We always welcome <a href="#patches">one-off patches</a> from | 
 |   people who do not routinely contribute to LLVM, but we expect more from  | 
 |   frequent contributors to keep the system as efficient as possible for  | 
 |   everyone. | 
 |   Frequent LLVM contributors are expected to meet the following requirements in | 
 |   order for LLVM to maintain a high standard of quality.<p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="informed">Stay Informed</a> </div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>Developers should stay informed by reading at least the  | 
 |   <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">llvmdev</a>  | 
 |   email list.  If you are doing anything more than just casual work on LLVM,  | 
 |   it is suggested that you also subscribe to the  | 
 |   <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits">llvm-commits</a>  | 
 |   list and pay attention to changes being made by others.</p> | 
 |   <p>We recommend that active developers register an email account with  | 
 |   <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">LLVM Bugzilla</a> and preferably subscribe to | 
 |   the <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmbugs">llvm-bugs</a> | 
 |   email list to keep track of bugs and enhancements occurring in LLVM.</p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="patches">Making a Patch</a></div> | 
 |  | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |  | 
 | <p>When making a patch for review, the goal is to make it as easy for the | 
 |    reviewer to read it as possible.  As such, we recommend that you:</p> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li>Make your patch against the Subversion trunk, not a branch, and not an  | 
 |     old version of LLVM.  This makes it easy to apply the patch.</li> | 
 |          | 
 |     <li>Similarly, patches should be submitted soon after they are generated. | 
 |     Old patches may not apply correctly if the underlying code changes between | 
 |     the time the patch was created and the time it is applied.</li> | 
 |          | 
 |     <li>Patches should be made with this command: | 
 |     <pre>svn diff -x -u</pre> | 
 |      or with the utility <tt>utils/mkpatch</tt>, which makes it easy to read the | 
 |      diff.</li> | 
 |       | 
 |     <li>Patches should not include differences in generated code such as the | 
 |     code generated by <tt>flex</tt>, <tt>bison</tt> or <tt>tblgen</tt>. The | 
 |     <tt>utils/mkpatch</tt> utility takes care of this for you.</li> | 
 |      | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>When sending a patch to a mailing list, it is a good idea to send it as an | 
 |   <em>attachment</em> to the message, not embedded into the text of the | 
 |   message.  This ensures that your mailer will not mangle the patch when it  | 
 |   sends it (e.g. by making whitespace changes or by wrapping lines).</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p><em>For Thunderbird users:</em> Before submitting a patch, please open  | 
 |   <em>Preferences → Advanced → General → Config Editor</em>, | 
 |   find the key <tt>mail.content_disposition_type</tt>, and set its value to | 
 |   <tt>1</tt>. Without this setting, Thunderbird sends your attachment using | 
 |   <tt>Content-Disposition: inline</tt> rather than <tt>Content-Disposition: | 
 |   attachment</tt>. Apple Mail gamely displays such a file inline, making it | 
 |   difficult to work with for reviewers using that program.</p> | 
 | </p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="reviews">Code Reviews</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>LLVM has a code review policy. Code review is one way to increase the | 
 |   quality of software. We generally follow these policies:</p> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li>All developers are required to have significant changes reviewed  | 
 |     before they are committed to the repository.</li> | 
 |     <li>Code reviews are conducted by email, usually on the llvm-commits | 
 |         list.</li> | 
 |     <li>Code can be reviewed either before it is committed or after.  We expect | 
 |         major changes to be reviewed before being committed, but smaller | 
 |         changes (or changes where the developer owns the component) can be | 
 |         reviewed after commit.</li> | 
 |     <li>The developer responsible for a code change is also responsible for | 
 |         making all necessary review-related changes.</li> | 
 |     <li>Code review can be an iterative process, which continues until the patch | 
 |         is ready to be committed.</li> | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>Developers should participate in code reviews as both reviewers and  | 
 |     reviewees. If someone is kind enough to review your code, you should | 
 |     return the favor for someone else.  Note that anyone is welcome to review | 
 |     and give feedback on a patch, but only people with Subversion write access  | 
 |     can approve it.</p> | 
 |  | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="owners">Code Owners</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |  | 
 |   <p>The LLVM Project relies on two features of its process to maintain rapid | 
 |      development in addition to the high quality of its source base: the | 
 |      combination of code review plus post-commit review for trusted maintainers. | 
 |      Having both is a great way for the project to take advantage of the fact | 
 |      that most people do the right thing most of the time, and only commit | 
 |      patches without pre-commit review when they are confident they are | 
 |      right.</p> | 
 |       | 
 |   <p>The trick to this is that the project has to guarantee that all patches  | 
 |      that are committed are reviewed after they go in: you don't want everyone | 
 |      to assume someone else will review it, allowing the patch to go unreviewed. | 
 |      To solve this problem, we have a notion of an 'owner' for a piece of the | 
 |      code.  The sole responsibility of a code owner is to ensure that a commit | 
 |      to their area of the code is appropriately reviewed, either by themself or | 
 |      by someone else.  The current code owners are:</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li><b>Anton Korobeynikov</b>: Exception handling, debug information, and | 
 |         Windows codegen.</li> | 
 |     <li><b>Duncan Sands</b>: llvm-gcc 4.2.</li> | 
 |     <li><b>Evan Cheng</b>: Code generator and all targets.</li> | 
 |     <li><b>Chris Lattner</b>: Everything else.</li> | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>Note that code ownership is completely different than reviewers: anyone can | 
 |      review a piece of code, and we welcome code review from anyone who is | 
 |      interested.  Code owners are the "last line of defense" to guarantee that | 
 |      all patches that are committed are actually reviewed.</p> | 
 |  | 
 |   <p>Being a code owner is a somewhat unglamorous position, but it is incredibly | 
 |      important for the ongoing success of the project.  Because people get busy, | 
 |      interests change, and unexpected things happen, code ownership is purely | 
 |      opt-in, and anyone can choose to resign their "title" at any time. For now, | 
 |      we do not have an official policy on how one gets elected to be a code  | 
 |      owner. | 
 |   </p> | 
 |  | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="testcases">Test Cases</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>Developers are required to create test cases for any bugs fixed and any new | 
 |   features added.  Some tips for getting your testcase approved:</p> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li>All feature and regression test cases are added to the  | 
 |     <tt>llvm/test</tt> directory. The appropriate sub-directory should be  | 
 |     selected (see the <a href="TestingGuide.html">Testing Guide</a> for  | 
 |     details).</li> | 
 |     <li>Test cases should be written in  | 
 |     <a href="LangRef.html">LLVM assembly language</a> unless the | 
 |     feature or regression being tested requires another language (e.g. the | 
 |     bug being fixed or feature being implemented is in the llvm-gcc C++ | 
 |     front-end, in which case it must be written in C++).</li> | 
 |     <li>Test cases, especially for regressions, should be reduced as much as  | 
 |     possible, by <a href="Bugpoint.html">bugpoint</a> or | 
 |     manually. It is unacceptable  | 
 |     to place an entire failing program into <tt>llvm/test</tt> as this creates | 
 |     a <i>time-to-test</i> burden on all developers. Please keep them short.</li> | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>Note that llvm/test is designed for regression and small feature tests | 
 |     only. More extensive test cases (e.g., entire applications, benchmarks, | 
 |     etc) should be added to the <tt>llvm-test</tt> test suite.  The llvm-test | 
 |     suite is for coverage (correctness, performance, etc) testing, not feature | 
 |     or regression testing.</p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="quality">Quality</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>The minimum quality standards that any change must satisfy before being | 
 |     committed to the main development branch are:</p> | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li>Code must adhere to the  | 
 |     <a href="CodingStandards.html">LLVM Coding Standards</a>.</li> | 
 |     <li>Code must compile cleanly (no errors, no warnings) on at least one  | 
 |     platform.</li> | 
 |     <li>Bug fixes and new features should <a href="#testcases">include a | 
 |         testcase</a> so we know if the fix/feature ever regresses in the | 
 |         future.</li> | 
 |     <li>Code must pass the dejagnu (<tt>llvm/test</tt>) test suite.</li> | 
 |     <li>The code must not cause regressions on a reasonable subset of llvm-test, | 
 |         where "reasonable" depends on the contributor's judgement and the scope | 
 |         of the change (more invasive changes require more testing). A reasonable | 
 |         subset might be something like | 
 |         "<tt>llvm-test/MultiSource/Benchmarks</tt>".</li> | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |   <p>Additionally, the committer is responsible for addressing any problems | 
 |   found in the future that the change is responsible for.  For example:</p> | 
 |   <ul> | 
 |     <li>The code should compile cleanly on all supported platforms.</li> | 
 |     <li>The changes should not cause any correctness regressions in the | 
 |        <tt>llvm-test</tt> suite and must not cause any major performance | 
 |        regressions.</li> | 
 |     <li>The change set should not cause performance or correctness regressions  | 
 |     for the LLVM tools.</li> | 
 |     <li>The changes should not cause performance or correctness regressions in  | 
 |     code compiled by LLVM on all applicable targets.</li> | 
 |     <li>You are expected to address any <a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">bugzilla | 
 |     bugs</a> that result from your change.</li> | 
 |   </ul> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>We prefer for this to be handled before submission but understand that it | 
 |      isn't possible to test all of this for every submission.  Our nightly | 
 |      testing | 
 |      infrastructure normally finds these problems.  A good rule of thumb is to  | 
 |      check the nightly testers for regressions the day after your change.</p> | 
 |       | 
 |   <p>Commits that violate these quality standards (e.g. are very broken) may | 
 |     be reverted. This is necessary when the change blocks other developers from | 
 |     making progress. The developer is welcome to re-commit the change after  | 
 |     the problem has been fixed.</p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> | 
 |   <a name="commitaccess">Obtaining Commit Access</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |  | 
 | <p> | 
 | We grant commit access to contributors with a track record of submitting high | 
 | quality patches.  If you would like commit access, please send an email to   | 
 | <a href="mailto:sabre@nondot.org">Chris</a> with the following information:</p> | 
 |  | 
 | <ol> | 
 |   <li>The user name you want to commit with, e.g. "sabre".</li> | 
 |   <li>The full name and email address you want message to llvm-commits to come | 
 |       from, e.g. "Chris Lattner <sabre@nondot.org>".</li> | 
 |   <li>A "password hash" of the password you want to use, e.g. "2ACR96qjUqsyM".   | 
 |       Note that you don't ever tell us what your password is, you just give it | 
 |       to us in an encrypted form.  To get this, run "htpasswd" (a utility that | 
 |       comes with apache) in crypt mode (often enabled with "-d"), or find a web | 
 |       page that will do it for you.</li> | 
 | </ol> | 
 |  | 
 | <p>Once you've been granted commit access, you should be able to check out an | 
 |    LLVM tree with an SVN URL of "https://username@llvm.org/..." instead of the | 
 |    normal anonymous URL of "http://llvm.org/...".  The first time you commit | 
 |    you'll have to type in your password.  Note that you may get a warning from | 
 |    SVN about an untrusted key, you can ignore this.  To verify that your commit | 
 |    access works, please do a test commit (e.g. change a comment or add a blank | 
 |    line).  Your first commit to a repository may require the autogenerated email | 
 |    to be approved by a mailing list.  This is normal, and will be done when | 
 |    the mailing list owner has time.</p> | 
 |  | 
 | <p>If you have recently been granted commit access, these policies apply:</p> | 
 |  | 
 | <ol> | 
 |   <li>You are granted <i>commit-after-approval</i> to all parts of LLVM. | 
 |   To get approval, submit a <a href="#patches">patch</a> to | 
 |   <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits"> | 
 |   llvm-commits</a>.  When approved you may commit it yourself.</li> | 
 |   <li>You are allowed to commit patches without approval which you think are | 
 |   obvious. This is clearly a subjective decision — we simply expect you | 
 |   to use good judgement.  Examples include: fixing build breakage, reverting | 
 |   obviously broken patches, documentation/comment changes, any other minor | 
 |   changes.</li> | 
 |   <li>You are allowed to commit patches without approval to those portions  | 
 |   of LLVM that you have contributed or maintain (i.e., have been assigned  | 
 |   responsibility for), with the proviso that such commits must not break the  | 
 |   build.  This is a "trust but verify" policy and commits of this nature are  | 
 |   reviewed after they are committed.</li> | 
 |   <li>Multiple violations of these policies or a single egregious violation | 
 |   may cause commit access to be revoked.</li> | 
 | </ol> | 
 |  | 
 | <p>In any case, your changes are still subject to <a href="#reviews">code | 
 | review</a> (either before or after they are committed, depending on the nature | 
 | of the change).  You are encouraged to review other peoples' patches as well, | 
 | but you aren't required to.</p> | 
 |    | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="newwork">Making a Major Change</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>When a developer begins a major new project with the aim of contributing  | 
 |   it back to LLVM, s/he should inform the community with an email to  | 
 |   the <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">llvmdev</a>  | 
 |   email list, to the extent possible. The reason for this is to: | 
 |   <ol> | 
 |     <li>keep the community informed about future changes to LLVM, </li> | 
 |     <li>avoid duplication of effort by preventing multiple parties working on | 
 |      the same thing and not knowing about it, and</li> | 
 |     <li>ensure that any technical issues around the proposed work are  | 
 |     discussed and resolved before any significant work is done.</li> | 
 |   </ol> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>The design of LLVM is carefully controlled to ensure that all the pieces | 
 |   fit together well and are as consistent as possible. If you plan to make a | 
 |   major change to the way LLVM works or want to add a major new extension, it | 
 |   is a good idea to get consensus with the development | 
 |   community before you start working on it.</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>Once the design of the new feature is finalized, the work itself should be | 
 |      done as a series of <a href="#incremental">incremental changes</a>, not as | 
 |      a long-term development branch.</p> | 
 |       | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="incremental">Incremental Development</a> | 
 | </div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>In the LLVM project, we do all significant changes as a series of | 
 |      incremental patches.  We have a strong dislike for huge changes or | 
 |      long-term development branches.  Long-term development branches have a | 
 |      number of drawbacks:</p> | 
 |       | 
 |    <ol> | 
 |    <li>Branches must have mainline merged into them periodically.  If the branch | 
 |        development and mainline development occur in the same pieces of code, | 
 |        resolving merge conflicts can take a lot of time.</li> | 
 |    <li>Other people in the community tend to ignore work on branches.</li> | 
 |    <li>Huge changes (produced when a branch is merged back onto mainline) are | 
 |        extremely difficult to <a href="#reviews">code review</a>.</li> | 
 |    <li>Branches are not routinely tested by our nightly tester | 
 |        infrastructure.</li> | 
 |    <li>Changes developed as monolithic large changes often don't work until the | 
 |        entire set of changes is done.  Breaking it down into a set of smaller | 
 |        changes increases the odds that any of the work will be committed to the | 
 |        main repository.</li> | 
 |    </ol>     | 
 |    | 
 |   <p> | 
 |   To address these problems, LLVM uses an incremental development style and we | 
 |   require contributors to follow this practice when making a large/invasive | 
 |   change.  Some tips:</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <ul> | 
 |     <li>Large/invasive changes usually have a number of secondary changes that | 
 |      are required before the big change can be made (e.g. API cleanup, etc). | 
 |      These sorts of changes can often be done before the major change is done, | 
 |      independently of that work.</li> | 
 |     <li>The remaining inter-related work should be decomposed into unrelated  | 
 |     sets of changes if possible.  Once this is done, define the first increment | 
 |     and get consensus on what the end goal of the change is.</li> | 
 |      | 
 |     <li>Each change in the set can be stand alone (e.g. to fix a bug), or part | 
 |     of a planned series of changes that works towards the development goal.</li> | 
 |      | 
 |     <li>Each change should be kept as small as possible. This simplifies your  | 
 |     work (into a logical progression), simplifies code review and reduces the | 
 |     chance that you will get negative feedback on the change. Small increments | 
 |     also facilitate the maintenance of a high quality code base.</li> | 
 |      | 
 |     <li>Often, an independent precursor to a big change is to add a new API and | 
 |         slowly migrate clients to use the new API.  Each change to use the new | 
 |         API is often "obvious" and can be committed without review.  Once the  | 
 |         new API is in place and used, it is much easier to replace the | 
 |         underlying implementation of the API.  This implementation change is | 
 |         logically separate from the API change.</li> | 
 |   </ul> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>If you are interested in making a large change, and this scares you, please | 
 |      make sure to first <a href="#newwork">discuss the change/gather | 
 |      consensus</a> then ask about the best way to go about making | 
 |      the change.</p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="attribution">Attribution of  | 
 | Changes</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>We believe in correct attribution of contributions to  | 
 |   their contributors.  However, we do not want the source code to be littered | 
 |   with random attributions "this code written by J Random Guy" (this is noisy | 
 |   and distracting.  In practice, the revision control system keeps a perfect | 
 |   history of who change what, and the CREDITS.txt file describes higher-level | 
 |   contributions.</p> | 
 |  | 
 |   <p>Overall, please do not add contributor names to the source base.</p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | <!--=========================================================================--> | 
 | <div class="doc_section"> | 
 |   <a name="clp">Copyright, License, and Patents</a> | 
 | </div> | 
 | <!--=========================================================================--> | 
 |  | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>This section addresses the issues of copyright, license and patents for  | 
 |   the LLVM project. | 
 |   Currently, the University of Illinois is the LLVM copyright holder and the  | 
 |   terms of its license to LLVM users and developers is the  | 
 |   <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/UoI-NCSA.php">University of  | 
 |     Illinois/NCSA Open Source License</a>.</p> | 
 |  | 
 | <div class="doc_notes"> | 
 |   <p><b>NOTE: This section deals with legal matters but does not provide | 
 |   legal advice.  We are not lawyers, please seek legal counsel from an | 
 |   attorney.</b></p> | 
 | </div> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="copyright">Copyright</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p> | 
 |   <p>For consistency and ease of management, the project requires the  | 
 |   copyright for all LLVM software to be held by a single copyright holder: | 
 |   the University of Illinois (UIUC).</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p> | 
 |   Although UIUC may eventually reassign the copyright of the software to another | 
 |   entity (e.g. a dedicated non-profit "LLVM Organization") | 
 |   the intent for the project is to always have a single entity hold the | 
 |   copyrights to LLVM at any given time.</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>We believe that having a single copyright  | 
 |   holder is in the best interests of all developers and users as it greatly  | 
 |   reduces the managerial burden for any kind of administrative or technical  | 
 |   decisions about LLVM.  The goal of the LLVM project is to always keep the code | 
 |   open and <a href="#license">licensed under a very liberal license</a>.</p> | 
 |  | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="license">License</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>We intend to keep LLVM perpetually open source  | 
 |   and to use a liberal open source license. The current license is the  | 
 |   <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/UoI-NCSA.php"> | 
 |     University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License</a>, which boils | 
 |   down to this:</p> | 
 |   <ul> | 
 |     <li>You can freely distribute LLVM.</li> | 
 |     <li>You must retain the copyright notice if you redistribute LLVM.</li> | 
 |     <li>Binaries derived from LLVM must reproduce the copyright notice (e.g.  | 
 |         in an included readme file).</li> | 
 |     <li>You can't use our names to promote your LLVM derived products.</li> | 
 |     <li>There's no warranty on LLVM at all.</li> | 
 |   </ul> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>We believe this fosters the widest adoption of LLVM because it <b>allows  | 
 |   commercial products to be derived from LLVM</b> with few restrictions and | 
 |   without a requirement for making any derived works also open source (i.e.  | 
 |   LLVM's license is not a "copyleft" license like the GPL). We suggest that you | 
 |   read the <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/UoI-NCSA.php">License</a> | 
 |   if further clarification is needed.</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>Note that the LLVM Project does distribute llvm-gcc, <b>which is GPL.</b> | 
 |   This means that anything "linked" into llvm-gcc must itself be compatible | 
 |   with the GPL, and must be releasable under the terms of the GPL.  This implies | 
 |   that <b>any code linked into llvm-gcc and distributed to others may be subject | 
 |   to the viral aspects of the GPL</b> (for example, a proprietary code generator | 
 |   linked into llvm-gcc must be made available under the GPL).  This is not a | 
 |   problem for code already distributed under a more liberal license (like the | 
 |   UIUC license), and does not affect code generated by llvm-gcc.  It may be a | 
 |   problem if you intend to base commercial development on llvm-gcc without | 
 |   redistributing your source code.</p> | 
 |    | 
 |   <p>We have no plans to change the license of LLVM.  If you have questions | 
 |     or comments about the license, please contact the <a | 
 |     href="mailto:llvm-oversight@cs.uiuc.edu">LLVM Oversight Group</a>.</p> | 
 |  | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="patents">Patents</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |  | 
 | <p>To the best of our knowledge, LLVM does not infringe on any patents (we have | 
 |    actually removed code from LLVM in the past that was found to infringe). | 
 |    Having code in LLVM that infringes on patents would violate an important | 
 |    goal of the project by making it hard or impossible to reuse the code for | 
 |    arbitrary purposes (including commercial use).</p> | 
 |     | 
 | <p>When contributing code, we expect contributors to notify us of any potential | 
 |    for patent-related trouble with their changes.  If you or your employer | 
 |    own the rights to a | 
 |    patent and would like to contribute code to LLVM that relies on it, we | 
 |    require that | 
 |    the copyright owner sign an agreement that allows any other user of LLVM to | 
 |    freely use your patent.  Please contact the <a  | 
 |    href="mailto:llvm-oversight@cs.uiuc.edu">oversight group</a> for more | 
 |    details.</p> | 
 | </div> | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | <!-- _______________________________________________________________________ --> | 
 | <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="devagree">Developer Agreements</a></div> | 
 | <div class="doc_text"> | 
 |   <p>With regards to the LLVM copyright and licensing, developers agree to  | 
 |   assign their copyrights to UIUC for any contribution made so that  | 
 |   the entire software base can be managed by a single copyright holder.  This | 
 |   implies that any contributions can be licensed under the license that the | 
 |   project uses.</p> | 
 |  | 
 |   <p>When contributing code, you also affirm that you are legally entitled to  | 
 |   grant this copyright, personally or on behalf of your employer.  If the code | 
 |   belongs to some other entity, please raise this issue with the oversight | 
 |   group before the code is committed.</p> | 
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