I committed the gccgo frontend using a BSD-style license with this boilerplate:
// Copyright 2009 The Go Authors. All rights reserved. // Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style // license that can be found in the LICENSE file. The frontend is currently tightly tied to gcc. However, my goal is to loosen those ties, and make it possible to use the frontend with other compilers. Therefore, it seemed to me that a BSD-style license was appropriate, and since the runtime library already uses one, I used the same one. However, Joseph Myers pointed out that the gcc mission statement says "Copyrights for the compilers are to be held by the FSF." I think when we wrote that line we were thinking of quite a different issue. However, it is certainly true that having the gccgo frontend be copyright "The Go Authors" violates that statement. So I would like some guidance from the SC on what the right approach is here. This is my order of preference: 1) Keep the license as is (and add the AUTHORS file which I forgot to commit, and which currently just says Google, Inc.). 2) Keep the BSD-style license but change the copyright of the gccgo frontend to the FSF. The runtime library, which is shared with the other Go compiler, would remain under the existing license, as is permitted by the mission statement. 3) Move the gccgo frontend to the GPL. Obviously the complete gccgo program--the gccgo frontend plus the gcc middle-end--will always be under the GPL, as it should be. Ian
