On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 07:00:44AM -0800, Paolo Bonzini wrote: > > I think the main reason is that DMD front end sources are dual licensed > > with GPL and Artistic License. The DMD backend is not under an open > > source license (personal use only), so the Artistic License is how the > > two are integrated. The fork is required to allow DMD to continue under > > its current license scheme. > > > > It also means that fixes to the GCC front end would not be copyable to > > the DMD front end going forward. > > Strictly speaking, that's not true. Even if the submitter would still > be required to have copyright assignment for the FSF, they could be > copyable to the DMD front-end _as long as the submitter himself sends > them for inclusion there too_. This is the practical significance of > the license grantback from the FSF to the author.
This is getting off-topic for this list. Still, if this were the plan (and I don't know whether it is or not), I think that the FSF would reject it, because it would implicitly ask all GCC developers to help out with a proprietary product. There would also be a huge conflict-of-interest issue if the official maintainer of the D front end were in a position to accept or reject patches based not on their technical merit, but on whether the contributor agrees to separately contribute them under the dual-license scheme, and his/her employer had an interest in this issue.
