Hi There,

>> pragma License (Modified_GPL);
> 
> I need good arguments.  Is there any need to distribute generated
> binaries ?
> 
> Tristan.
> 

I'd have this scenario:
- Customer 'C' (not someone in-house) orders a design and wants to run
his data through the test bench
- C gets a binary that interfaces with some simple front end (like
Matlab or Python)
- C evaluates design, when he's happy, he moves on with the project. If
he doesn't, he can't secretly reuse my VHDL source.

So it is getting into gray areas when you have written a design, put it
on the web for someone to evaluate it, but don't make the source
available. There could be license clashes even, when you include third
party stuff that can't be GPLed (such as Xilinx library code).

So my workaround is, to make critical designs accessible via a network
interface and let them run in-house, so no binary is distributed. This
is kinda quirky and gets difficult in multi-user scenarios.
Like with gcc and my C code that I wouldn't want to automatically infect
with GPL, it would seem more natural to me that the GPL would apply to
the GHDL side, but not my VHDL design. I believe a small company would
rather buy themselves out of the GPL (so far my experience with my dual
licensed code) if they could. Not sure if those few would fully fund the
GHDL development though :-)
Maybe a LGPL for the runtime libs would just solve the problem, but then
again, I might be missing something.

Greetings,

- Martin

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