[please consider taking followups off-line, as the Haskell content of
this thread has started to become rather low. -moderator]
On 22-Jul-1998, Simon Marlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hutchison) writes:
>
> > There are *two* GNU licenses. The GPL is meant for tools, like GHC, and
> > would prevent certain uses of GHC. There is a second GNU license for
> > libraries, called LGPL, and this is important. The runtime components of
> > GHC should be licensed using the library license (just like the GNU
> > runtimes are). Using both licenses appropriately would allow for the use
> > of GHC in commercial software (as long as GHC itself was not included).
> > Any improvements GHC or its runtime would still have to be made public
> > by the commercial entity.
>
> Sure, but what happens when someone wants to include GHC in a
> commercial system?
Either
(1) They discuss things with the copyright owner and come to some mutually
satisfactory arrangement.
or
(2) They design their software so that it is not a "derivate work" of ghc
(e.g. If they're building a Haskell IDE, perhaps they just invoke ghc
or any other Haskell compiler as a separate process).
or
(3) They release their source code under the GPL.
> Really, the GNU license is innapropriate for most commercial use.
I think you are talking about people selling products that include
ghc (as opposed to products just compiled by ghc) and I think that
was something that Simon said he did not want to allow. So I think
the GPL would achieve Simon's intentions in this respect.
--
Fergus Henderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
