www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - Clarifications on D License(s)

reply Brian <Brian_member pathlink.com> writes:
Can someone please clarify the licensing scheme for this compiler? D is a really
awesome language (been tinkering with it since 0.43), however, there seems to be
some confusion about how this thing is licensed. This is what I have been able
to piece together, although I am not sure of its validity:

* Front-end seems to be under GPL & Artistic License
* Back-end is under ???
* GDC is under GPL
* Phobos is under GPL
* No-Redist License on some/all of it ??

Mainly, I am concerned about this for two reasons:
* my favourite distribution (Gentoo Linux) refuses to include it in their
software archives (portage) claiming redist issues, and no access to versioned
tarballs.
* I'd like to write some open source software (possibly with D), but I want to
write it with a compiler which is also free-as-in-free-speech. 

Can someone please clarify the licensing of this software, and possibly explain
the reasoning behind why certain parts of the software (if any) are not under an
OSS-compatible ( http://opensource.org/licenses/ ) licenses? Thanks a bunch!
Nov 26 2005
next sibling parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
"Brian" <Brian_member pathlink.com> wrote in message
news:dmbkhb$2d4o$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 Can someone please clarify the licensing scheme for this compiler? D is a


really

 awesome language (been tinkering with it since 0.43), however, there seems


to be

 some confusion about how this thing is licensed. This is what I have been


able

 to piece together, although I am not sure of its validity:

 * Front-end seems to be under GPL & Artistic License


Yes.


 * Back-end is under ???


The DMD back end is proprietary. However, one can use GDC which is 100% GPL.


 * GDC is under GPL


Yes.


 * Phobos is under GPL


No, it's mostly public domain or under a free redistribution copyright.


 * No-Redist License on some/all of it ??


No.


 Mainly, I am concerned about this for two reasons:
 * my favourite distribution (Gentoo Linux) refuses to include it in their
 software archives (portage) claiming redist issues,


If they'll identify the redist issues to me, I will work with them to fix
it.


 and no access to versioned tarballs.


??


 * I'd like to write some open source software (possibly with D), but I


want to

 write it with a compiler which is also free-as-in-free-speech.

 Can someone please clarify the licensing of this software, and possibly


explain

 the reasoning behind why certain parts of the software (if any) are not


under an

 OSS-compatible ( http://opensource.org/licenses/ ) licenses? Thanks a


bunch!

If someone does have a specific issue, please let me know.
Nov 27 2005
next sibling parent Thomas Kuehne <thomas-dloop kuehne.cn> writes:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Walter Bright schrieb am 2005-11-27:

 "Brian" <Brian_member pathlink.com> wrote in message
 news:dmbkhb$2d4o$1 digitaldaemon.com...


<snip>


 Mainly, I am concerned about this for two reasons:
 * my favourite distribution (Gentoo Linux) refuses to include it in their
 software archives (portage) claiming redist issues,


 If they'll identify the redist issues to me, I will work with them to fix
 it.


 and no access to versioned tarballs.


 ??


That is a non-issue as there are versioned zips. Several ebuilds
including xcolor, cbind, achemso and charles use zips too.

Thomas


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iD8DBQFDigsV3w+/yD4P9tIRAgjRAJoD4y79k+NNxVOPQnSrimKpUJTE1wCgqiF1
LMzHj1/YBFvbvNAlo96bB8Y=
=oXcS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Nov 27 2005
prev sibling parent reply Brian <Brian_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <dmc224$2moq$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...


 Mainly, I am concerned about this for two reasons:
 * my favourite distribution (Gentoo Linux) refuses to include it in their
 software archives (portage) claiming redist issues,


If they'll identify the redist issues to me, I will work with them to fix
it.


Awesome. I'll get in contact with their devs about it. 


 and no access to versioned tarballs.


??


I think what they mean is that they cant find zips/tars with version strings
attached. I have only been able to find dmd.zip for download, but not something
that indicates the version, e.g. dmd-0.140.zip. If such a thing is already
available, please direct me to it ;-) Thanks.
Nov 27 2005
next sibling parent "Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown simplemachines.org> writes:
Download links are here:

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/changelog.html

They may mean that they cannot find versioned SOURCE tarballs, which 
will compile (since Gentoo is a source-based distro.)  Unfortunately, as 
mentioned, the backend for DMD is not open source.  Because of this, you 
cannot compile from source any version of DMD you wish.

This is not true with gdc (you can compile it from source), but 
unfortunately old versions of that do not seem to be available, as far 
as I can tell.  This may have been what they meant.

To be honest, it would be nice to be able to compile DMD (e.g., using a 
lib/so or something for the backend), but I understand why Walter 
doesn't want to do this.

-[Unknown]



 In article <dmc224$2moq$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...
 
 

Mainly, I am concerned about this for two reasons:
* my favourite distribution (Gentoo Linux) refuses to include it in their
software archives (portage) claiming redist issues,


If they'll identify the redist issues to me, I will work with them to fix
it.


 
 
 Awesome. I'll get in contact with their devs about it. 
 
 

and no access to versioned tarballs.


??


 
 
 I think what they mean is that they cant find zips/tars with version strings
 attached. I have only been able to find dmd.zip for download, but not something
 that indicates the version, e.g. dmd-0.140.zip. If such a thing is already
 available, please direct me to it ;-) Thanks.
Nov 27 2005
prev sibling parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
"Brian" <Brian_member pathlink.com> wrote in message
news:dmcn4n$720$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I think what they mean is that they cant find zips/tars with version


strings

 attached. I have only been able to find dmd.zip for download, but not


something

 that indicates the version, e.g. dmd-0.140.zip. If such a thing is already
 available, please direct me to it ;-) Thanks.


http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.140.zip
Nov 27 2005
parent Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 "Brian" <Brian_member pathlink.com> wrote in message
 news:dmcn4n$720$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I think what they mean is that they cant find zips/tars with version


 strings

 attached. I have only been able to find dmd.zip for download, but not


 something

 that indicates the version, e.g. dmd-0.140.zip. If such a thing is already
 available, please direct me to it ;-) Thanks.


 
 http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.140.zip


And links to all the releases are available in the changelog:

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/changelog.html
Nov 27 2005
prev sibling parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
Brian wrote:


 Mainly, I am concerned about this for two reasons:
 * my favourite distribution (Gentoo Linux) refuses to include it in their
 software archives (portage) claiming redist issues, and no access to versioned
 tarballs.


This a very old issue, and has been resolved for Gentoo - a year ago ?
(see http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/17651.html etc)

dmd-0.121.ebuild (probably works for newer too)
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46806


 * I'd like to write some open source software (possibly with D), but I want to
 write it with a compiler which is also free-as-in-free-speech. 


So just use GDC then, it's under the "free-as-in-stallman" GPL license ?
DMD is not re-distributable, and doesn't come with the full source code.

gdc-0.15.ebuild (probably works for newer too)
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48136


 Can someone please clarify the licensing of this software, and possibly explain
 the reasoning behind why certain parts of the software (if any) are not under
an
 OSS-compatible ( http://opensource.org/licenses/ ) licenses? Thanks a bunch!


The above ebuild files should have license info set.

dmd:
LICENSE="DMD"
RESTRICT="nomirror"
KEYWORDS="~x86"

gdc:
LICENSE="GPL-2"

Phobos is a part of both compilers (but is patched *differently*),
and is (mostly) under either Public Domain or zlib/libpng license.

See also http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?PhobosLicenseIssues

--anders


PS. For the terminally bored, here are the version-by-version diffs:
     http://www.algonet.se/~afb/d/diffs/   (for both of DMD and GDC)
Nov 28 2005