On Wed, Nov 05, 2014 at 08:23:31AM +0100, Joris van Rantwijk wrote: > > On 2014-11-05, Andreas Bombe wrote: > > Possibility C) Let's write our own uncreative spec files adhering to > > the standard. A bit of work, but we wouldn't depend on any legal > > interpretation and the compiled simulations are also unquestionably > > distributable. > > I think it can be done. The traditional way to do this is in a team: > person A dives into the IEEE files to write natural-language > specifications and test benches, while person B writes a clean VHDL > implementation without ever looking at the IEEE files.
That would be overdoing it. For reverse engineering and preventing accidental transfer of code into your own implementation, sure. In our case we already have a natural language specification, it's the VHDL Language Reference Manual. At this point I wonder if it's not just simpler to just go and implement a free alternative implementation instead of discussing at length how to handle that IEEE license. I see that it would be some work, but the payoff of not having to worry about the licenses would be worth it I think. > > Possibility D) We may distribute, but the files aren't DFSG free, so > > put the ghdl package in Debian's non-free section. > > Still problematic because binary packages contain compiled libraries. > Still problematic for the VHDL-1993 version and VITAL packages. Right. Also, while looking at the libraries, I found that the textio package is licensed under the GPL like the rest of ghdl, meaning that any compiled simulation using textio falls under the GPL. Tristan, if that's not intentional, you should think about adding a library exception to amend those files' license like GCC does for the parts of it that can be compiled/linked into its output. Andreas _______________________________________________ Ghdl-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/ghdl-discuss
