[M3devel] A question about the M3 licensing...

[Olaf Wagner]

Quoting hendrik at topoi.pooq.com:

> I suppose there's another possibility -- writing a new M3 front end with
> a different licence, and being free of SRC forever.  Except that if
> some of our libraries are compiled from SRC source code, will we have to
> compile at installation tiem to avould distributing mixed GNU/SRC
> binaries?

I don't think this is correct. The SRC license allows much more than
the GNU FSF license. That was exactly the stumbling block when it came
to integrating the M3 extensions to gcc into the gcc distribution.
The FSF didn't like the way the backend was used in a different process
context in order to avoid infecting all compiler code with the FSF
license.

Of course you can write another compiler front-end under the FSF
license. I'd assume this will take several man-years though until
you reach the quality of the current system. And any commercial use
will then be much more difficult, but this is probably moot
regarding the current widespread user base :-)

Olaf
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