On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 08:06:59AM +0200, Paul de Weerd wrote: > On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 07:55:48PM -0500, Adam Patterson wrote: > > Paul de Weerd wrote: > >> On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 03:23:17PM +0000, hyjial wrote: >> > >> Anyway, perl is distributed under the artistic license, yet the > >> pkg-tools are licensed under an ISC-style license. > >> > >> Compare, if you will, with most other tools in OpenBSD. They're C > >> programs with an ISC or BSD-style license. However, GCC is distributed > >> under the GPL. Boo-freakidy-hoo .. why make a problem of the perl > >> license now, is bashing GCC's license not fun anymore ? > >> > >> You know, if you want, you could write an ISC-licensed perl > >> interpreter. Go right ahead and feel free to send patches when you're > >> done. I'll suggest a name for you : 'hurl'. If you're done, could you > >> please write an ISC-licensed C-compiler in perl so I can finally shut > >> up all the idiots that claim that a system without a compiler is more > >> secure ? Don't worry, I can wait. > > I don't know. If you come here I'd expect informed questions. What's > the use of discussing the license of the interpreter of the software > when talking about the software ? > > > "What technical reasons have lead the developers to elect this language ?" > > Since when is that a question provoking sarcasm and anger? Its curiosity. > > Same thing that got most of us here at some point or another. > > Everyone is so quick to be the first with a nasty response. > > The useless discussion on licenses beyond the control of the > developers coupled with the poor formatting provoked some sarcasm, > yes. Marc Espie, who wrote most of the code, gave us the pkg-tools > under an ISC license. The reasons for his choice of language have been > documented on the OpenBSD mailinglists. I was not 'quick' or 'trying > to be the first' (a useless effort when you're replying to a mail that > has already been replied to, by the way), just pointing out (in a > sarcastic way, I will grant you that) that it's mostly a fruitless > discussion. > > There's a difference between : > > "What technical reasons have lead the developers to elect this > language ?" > > and > > "[Perl is not BSD licensed] What technical reasons have lead the > developers to elect this language ?" > > The first is asking a technical question, the second is bringing > politics into your techincal question. What do you want, a technical > discussion or a political discussion ? As had been pointed out, the > technical question had already been answered, the political discussion > (I think) merits a sarcastic answer, as this has definitely been > discussed over and over and over again. > > If you don't like the license on perl, you are free to implement the > language on your own and license the result any way you like. I just > don't see how its license is of any relevance to the software you > write in it. OpenBSD comes with perl. It's not going away. Why not use > it ? How is it different to using GPL'd GCC to compile ISC'd code ? In > the latter case, everybody seems to understand that the license of the > compiler has little to do with the license of the code it compiles. > The political discussion about using GPL'd GCC and the technical > discussion about using C for the base OS have so far been completely > separate. The intent of my sarcastic mail was to point out that these > two are best kept separate.
I think that there's a fundmental difference over worrying about the license on a compiler vs on an interpreter. If your application requires distribution and the license is an issue, you can forgo shipping the compiler and stuff will still work but you can't forgo shipping an interpreter. Of course, without an actual here's-my-problem issue to discuss, its philosophical and hypothetical which allows us to argue over the periphery instead of the core issue. Is there any scenario where one could not easily ship a product that uses OpenBSD with its perl interpreter intact? Doug.
