Tracy R Reed wrote:
Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
Correct. Every VLSI design group I know of has a blanket ban on using
anything GPL since it might later cause source code for a design tool
to have to be released.
This is rather scary. Shouldn't you be checking the license of any code
you use to see if you are allowed to use it, GPL or not?
Ummm, yes. That is actually the whole point. If its BSD, I can use it.
If its GPL, I can use it *but only if I never distribute the tool*.
In VLSI, sometimes you need to distribute the tool. Maybe to a
subcontractor, maybe to a foundry, but it passes to the outside.
Once that happens, the GPL takes force. This has nothing to do with
"accidental" inclusions. This has to do with boxing yourself into a
corner which you can't get out of or which will require lots of work.
The easiest way to avoid getting hounded is simply ban GPL code for your
software development environment.
Generally the GPL folks just say stop using our
code or open your code.
And what happens if a GPL library is the cornerstone of that code? The
best example of this is Computational Geometry libraries. They are
complex pieces of code which would benefit from being open since the
user community is so small and bugs are so subtle. However, all of them
are GPL or commercial-hostile licenses. If I am a company, I will
refuse to allow the programmers to use *any* of this code since it will
become the cornerstone of the code. Thus, the company generates another
buggy, incompatible computational geometry library and then puts a
restrictive license on it because they spent money to develop it.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
GPL works well for code which has a potentially large starting user
base. BSD works much better if the user base is small and needs to be
nurtured. If Berkeley had adopted the GPL for SPICE2, the small user
base would never have coalesced into a coherent whole. It would have
retarded the growth of VLSI for years. The fact that SPICE2 was a BSD
license meant that an entire industry of circuit simulators appeared
almost overnight. Berkeley may not have gotten much for it (and I
disagree, but that's for another day), but the entire economy and an
entire industry benefited to a huge degree.
-a
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