On 06/20/14 23:28, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On Thursday, 19 June 2014 at 11:12:46 UTC, Artur Skawina via Digitalmars-d > wrote: >> That is fortunately not a problem for dmdfe, as boost/gpl should be >> ok for (almost) everyone. But the cost of having to deal with another >> license, for a bundled part, that you're never going to use and are not >> even interested in, is there. The cost of scratching-an-itch also >> becomes higher. Depending on person/context, these costs can be >> prohibitive.
> I still don't understand. What impact backend license has on you? Let's not make this about me - while this issue has been (one of) the reason(s) why I have never even looked at DMD in all the years, I have never mentioned it. At least not until somebody suggested that the problem is not a real one. :) It's just /one/ of the issues leading to the very low amount of contributions; eliminating this one wouldn't drastically change the situation, it would be just a small step in the right direction. > In other words, what is potential danger you need to be concerned about that > makes potential contributions too risky? One problem I am aware of is > redistribution issue which is common blocker with getting into linux > distributions. But personal contributions? Can you explain it in a bit more > details? It's not about being able to contribute to DMD, it is about being able to work on /other/ projects. If contributing to DMD carries the risk of affecting the latter then it's simply best to avoid it; it's not a risk worth taking, just for a few small improvements. Significant work often starts with simple and trivial fixes; if scratching-an-itch is too costly then major contributions suffer too. Note that whether the risk is significant, or even real, doesn't really matter much -- it's the cost of making the decision that matters. Just-submit-a-small-patch-to-a-boost- -licensed-project turns into investigate-the-licensing-and-evaluate-all- -the-potential-legal-implications. It's enough to discourage submissions *even in the cases where there is no problem*. artur
