On 12/07/2009 08:31 AM, Dave Pitts wrote: > Daniel Moerner wrote: >> Hi David, >> >> I see that you've done the work to write an interpreter for the FOCAL >> language. Recently, a request for this package was filed in Debian >> GNU/Linux.[1] I'd be interested in packaging your interpreter for >> distribution in Debian (and by extension, Ubuntu) because it seems like >> a useful piece of history. >> > > Never thought anybody would be that interested in Focal....
Well, "that interested" is a loose term! But at least one person was interested, and I think it's helpful to keep work like this around for people to use. It has 82 downloads on Softpedia, at the very least. >> However, before doing that, I would need clarification on the license. I >> don't see one in the source. Under what conditions is the distribution >> of your interpreter permitted? >> >> Some good choices for free licenses may be the GPL or the 3-clause BSD >> license, depending on your taste. Normally, Public Domain is not as good >> of a choice.[2] >> > > Well, I did the initial coding, in Pascal, of Focal waaaay before > anybody thought of GPL or BSD licenses. I converted it to C in the early > 1980s on Dec VAX running VMS. So, what would be the easiest way to set > it up? I signed GPL stuff for GCC and GAWK work that I've done in the past. Since it's your work, there should be no trouble. For the gcc work it was a bit different because you would have had to sign over your copyright to the FSF. In this case, you don't have to forfeit your copyright. All you would have to do is choose a license that you like and add it to the source tarball. This would state the license under which you authorize redistribution of Focal as copyright holder of the code of the interpreter. >> Also, is there a versioning system you use for packaging? Or is this the >> final version of FOCAL? >> > > I occasionally fix things and haven't given much thought to versioning > the code. I guess I could start it at version 1.0.0 for these release > purposes. > > What do you think? And how many are interested in a package? It's impossible to say in advance how many people would be interested. But it's my view at least that making pieces of history like this accessible to the public is always worthwhile. Regards, Daniel
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