On Wednesday, 21 May 2014 at 00:16:07 UTC, Max Barraclough wrote:
The DMD frontend is licensed under the GPL, which is 'viral': if
your code links against it, you'll have to release your code as
GPL.
Strictly, John is right in that the GPL doesn't prevent you from
charging for your code, but seeing as that code will be GPL'ed,
anyone who buys it will then be free to share it publicly free
of
charge. (You're also required to provide source.)
John's idea of having the user provide DMD, rather than bundling
it, may or may not be against the letter of the GPL (I'm unsure,
but I don't think it's exactly safe ground - your code is still
written to the DMD ABI, after all), but it's certainly against
the spirit.
Here is the official GPL FAQ:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
If I were you, I'd be asking: are there working D frontends
available other than DMD (from other IDE/compiler/tooling
projects)? If so, what's their licence? (I'm afraid I don't know
the answer to either.)
Usual disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, certainly not a copyright
lawyer, certainly not your lawyer, etc.
Yet more GPL bashing? This is getting very boring these days.
A GPL'd toolchain should not be a blocker for a commercial IDE. I
have such an IDE compiling my C++ code as I am typing this out.
GPL is not perfect but it's currently a good middle ground
license that allows developers to release code open source but
protect their rights to earn a living from it.
Or put it another way, if you want to make money from source code
that
cost the original author a lot of time and effort, then the
original author deserves the right to *choose* GPL and receive
something in return.
Either way the original author chose Open Source and that is
what's important.
GPL does not hinder open source development, nor the use of open
source
software in a commercial setting.
Cheers,
ed
