Hi All, Here is where it gets interesting, to use the GLANN extensions for AmForth the assembly abstraction layer is needed (riscv_pal.h) which is not licensed GPLv3 but MIT. My understanding is, there is no mixing of these licenses so is it helping the developer community? The paradox here is that they are both open source licenses, GPLv3 being the more restrictive and MIT being more permissive.
Regards to all, John S On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 9:51 AM John Sarabacha <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Erich, > Thank you for getting back to me on this. > Yes I do agree with you on this. > > working out, that ANY program written to run on a Forth system, > > extents that very system (you cannot distinguish between words > > from Forth or your words in compiled form), no matter what. If > > It tends to get a little more complicated when it becomes embedded in or > used on other > systems. How do you use forth on linux or Windows without violating GPLv3 ? > There is a dividing line here somewhere, I wish this could be a night or > day issue (clear cut), MIT licensing > seems to do that. > I can keep AmForth on a separate processor (under GPLv3) and integrate a > minimal forth (under MIT) which > I already have and still proceed with my work. Useful findings will be > passed back to the AmForth community. > > Thanks again for getting back to me on this issue, > John S > PS: In the beginning the Word was. > > > On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 4:54 AM Erich Wälde <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello John, >> >> I would ask you to discuss this in the open on the mailing list, >> please. >> >> >> That being said, we had licensing discussions when GPLv2 was >> replaced by GPLv3. At the time some effort was put into clearly >> working out, that ANY program written to run on a Forth system, >> extents that very system (you cannot distinguish between words >> from Forth or your words in compiled form), no matter what. If >> licensing is a thing, there is only one way out: start with a >> system featuring a license of your liking. >> >> Cheers, >> Erich >> >> John Sarabacha <[email protected]> writes: >> >> > Hi Erich, >> > I wanted to pass this by you first, my version (split/fork) >> > changed significantly from the original work, which is authored by me, >> to change >> > the licensing of these changes from GPLv3 to MIT. Matthias (asleep in >> death in >> > my belief system) being the original author is no longer available to >> decide. >> > >> >> Now, I'm not anywhere near to decide, what happens to AmForth, >> >>because Matthias has left this planet. And who does the work is >> >>going to decide. Whether or not building AmForth on C or C >> >>macros, or pure gnu assembly for riscv, or whether to switch to >> >>a direct threaded code model, or a native code model, or whether >> >>squeezing out every clock cycle possible --- these are all >> >>questions, that I cannot answer. I would encourage a split/fork >> >>and call the thing AmForth-riscv and NOT look left or right to >> >>other targets. But that is just my humble opinion. >> > >> > Hope to hear from you, >> > John S >> >> -- >> May the Forth be with you ... >> > _______________________________________________ Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel
