On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Bernhard Schmalhofer wrote:
> Amir Karger wrote:
> > A couple more questions on the coding front:
> >
> > (2) WinFrotz, one of the popular C Z-machine runtimes, is GPL. If I
> > steal code or ideas from there, does Parrot or this piece of it have to
> > be GPL only instead of GPL/Artistic? I am happily ignorant about
> > licensing issues.
> >
>
> Hi,
>
> I have the same question for my 'GNU m4' port to Parrot and Perl5,
Here's the scoop.
To have it as part of core parrot (i.e. part of the sources in the base
source directory and some of the subdirectories, *not* including ICU and
the languages dir) it must be GPL&AL. That means no pure GPL code can go
in. Anything that is built so it is dynamically loaded can be whatever
license it wants, so long as it doesn't force a license on Parrot. Other
stuff, like ICU, may be statically linked in if doing so doesn't put a
license on parrot's sources, as parrot's source license doesn't leak out.
(Which makes us not quite pure GPL&AL, I think, and I expect someone'll be
really cranky with us because of it somewhere)
Basically if we dynamically link you in, you're fine. We can even (I
think) distribute it as part of the core as long as it stays explicitly
separate, though I'd rather not as it'd inadvertently burn someone who
builds an all-static parrot (as the resulting executable would be
undistributable).
> This is the way I understand it:
> i. I can take GPLed code and derive <MyLanguage> from it.
> ii. <MyLanguage> is still under GPL
> iii. <MyLanguage> can become part of the Parrot core or be distributed
> with Parrot
Yes, yes, and no, respectively. All core code must have the same
license--no part can have a more restrictive license as that makes rather
a lot of trouble.
Dan
