On Saturday, 26 September 2015 at 23:48:05 UTC, Artur Skawina
wrote:
On 09/26/15 23:58, Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d wrote:
Given the DMD licensing situation, __nobody__ will (or
should) even look inside the DMD repo for info. Especially
that
Note that the above is not what I actually wrote, but has been
altered > with no mention of this fact.
It's hard enough to convey tone via email; such manipulations
don't help.
I added __ __ around nobody to make it clear what I was referring
to. Do you have a better idea about how to economically
highlight things when using a newsgroup interface? It would have
been appropriate to mention my emphasis, and mea culpa for that.
But when you say altered it suggests deliberate misrepresentation
in a way that fundamentally mischaracterises what you wrote, and
I don't believe this is the case. I merely highlighted it, and I
acknowledge that this might be misunderstood by somebody reading
in a hurry.
He's entitled to his view, but normally one is taken more
seriously if one makes a reasoned argument for a strong view
(which he declined to do in that previous thread). Prudence
is a virtue, but it's not quite the same thing as blanket
aversion to all possible risks - each must judge for himself,
but advising others like this goes quite far.
It's not advice, but a statement of fact. Well, the `(or
should)` part /is/, but it was parenthesized for a reason -
it's not the main point, but only a preemptive response to any
potential "but they should" reply.
Well, okay, I see where you are coming from. But there's enough
of this idea already that dmd isn't "free" in a way that
seriously matters and that reflects a spirit that wouldn't like
it to be free if commercial things were different that perhaps
you can see why what you wrote might also be taken a certain way
in this context.
Words have power, and it's easy to forget that when writing from
a personal perspective. (We're all part of the problem in 2015,
me too).
Obviously, "nobody" in this context does not literally mean
"nobody", > but nobody from the set of people with an interest
in the subject that might potentially create open source or
otherwise differently licensed works. The latter subset can in
theory be the same as the whole set (it will be smaller in
practice, yes).
"Obviously in this context does not literally mean "nobody",
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes, well, context isn't always very clear in this medium, and
neither is what's obvious. That's a very big set! I would have
thought the set of people practically speaking is those that work
on open-source or closed-source compiler backends. That's much
smaller than implied by what you wrote. Also, the set of people
with an interest in things vastly exceeds the number who do any
work in the area.
Considering that this discussion
is about an apparently undocumented file format that Manu would
like to see supported in a differently licensed work (LLVM) and
thinks that Walter and/or DMD is a good, or even unique, source
for info about, then > yes -- _nobody_ (that would like to use
the information to indirectly > incorporate in into LLVM) will
look for it inside some other proprietary > compiler. At least,
they are _not_supposed_to_, and really shouldn't. Even without
malicious intent it's too easy for the result to be
similar enough that somebody can claim it's a derivative work.
I see your point that given the need for not just propriety, but
the appearance of it then if someone were an LLVM contributor or
serious potential contributor it would be best to do as Manu
suggested and ask Walter than just look at the source without
knowing its status. I guess it's not so applicable, but you
couldn't have known that before looking. But then, if one's
concern is primarily about legal risks, then announcing one is
looking at code and making a big deal about one's concerns is
hardly prudent either as a general strategy. (And if it's an
internal ethical concern that's between you and whatever you do
or don't believe in).
Hence, as it appears that the code in question is boost
licensed,
(re-)publishing it in a way that would limit the "contamination"
concerns might help Manu's cause, and does not require Walter
do much more than a git clone+add+commit+push. Convincing a
LLVM developer to support a file format that's documented in a
single boost licensed file is going to be much easier than
suggesting that they obtain the info from a non-free
non-redistributable compiler source from another vendor. And by
"much easier" I mean "possible", because the other option
simply isn't (and shouldn't).
As I understand it, it's redistributable if you just ask nicely
and promise not to sue the various people involved. My reading
of what Walter has said on Reddit is that you could base a
commercial compiler on dmd and sell it and he would be fine with
that. But perhaps that's not a license to allow others to
redistribute, so maybe that causes problems with LLVM.
every
other `free-but-entangled-with-non-free` part of DMD has the
same problem.
Enough controversy for me for a while, so let's leave it at that.
I presume you're an LLVM contributor, and so I can see that you
may have special constraints.
Laeeth.
