[M3devel] licensing (gcc patches)

[Jay K]

licensing


"for the record"
I don't necessarily want to discuss it..


It has been speculated here that
our gcc patches weren't acceptable
because our license is more restrictive than GPL.


I believe it is more like the opposite.
Our patches not accepted because our license is /less/ restrictive.
 To most of the code. Not to the patch or files added to gcc.
   They can't really be.


In particular, by splitting cm3 from m3cg, the license "boundary"
is stopped. parse.c is/must be GPL. All the various *.m3 files not.


GPL advocates would prefer GPL code be linked to more code, thus
forcing more code to be GPL. Doing something like
splitting "something" into two processes is kind of a deliberate
anti-GPL move. It may or may not make good engineering sense.
(It does and it doesn't, in fact. It is good for development/testing,
bad for performance.)


Lately they allow "plugins", though they must be GPL.
Gcc faces "competition", e.g. LLVM.
Maybe things are more relaxed now.


Besides all that, non-trivial gcc patches require signing FSF papers.
Something I at least am very unlikely able to do.
But the vast bulk of the work I had nothing to do with.
And you can remove my changs with little effect.


Alternatively of course, LLVM has a more liberal license.
Generating C has no licening problem.
Porting m3back to more targets ditto..


 - Jay