Bernhard Schmalhofer via RT wrote:
languages/m4/README:15
What is the legal situation for Parrot m4?
Personally I would like to put 'languages/m4' under Artistic 2.0.
But I'm not sure whether this isn't a derived work. I implemented Parrot
m4 by:
i. Looking at the GNU m4 source code
ii. Implemented in PIR, based on the C source code, taking source
organization from GNU m4
iii. In the case of eval.c, taking only slightly modified GPLed source code
I'm sure the eval.c has to stay GPL licensed or be removed.
I'm not sure about the PIR code.
Only copying actual lines of source code makes the result a derived
work. Being inspired by, or duplicating the interface of other code
doesn't count for copyright law. So, you're fine for the PIR parts.
eval.c does need to stay under the GPL. But, it looks likely that m4
will eventually replace eval.c with the Parrot compiler toolchain (PGE,
etc). Or, if not, then the language probably should move to the
google-code repository before the 1.0 release anyway (where it can
happily continue as mixed artistic/gpl).
Allison
