Re: D compiler as part of GCC
Brad Roberts Wrote: On 1/23/2010 4:15 PM, Walter Bright wrote: Leandro Lucarella wrote: Walter Bright, el 23 de enero a las 12:54 me escribiste: Jerry Quinn wrote: Walter Bright Wrote: Will they take a fork of the dmd source, such that they own the copyright to the fork and Digital Mars still has copyright to the original? Hi, Walter, The answer appears to be yes: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-01/msg00430.html Jerry That's great news. I suppose I should look over the forms they talk about! Great news indeed! Since DMD FE is GPL I think it won't be any trouble to fold in the new changes back to GDC as they did (and LDC too), so it won't be really a *fork*, right? Well, still I won't be supporting gdc directly. It would mean a team that would be willing to take new DMD FE updates and fold them into GDC, and then follow whatever gcc's build and release conventions are. I don't think you got the answer you were looking for. You got an answer to a different question. If you assign the copyright over to the FSF, they then own the code. You'd have a license to use it as you like in return, but you would no longer be the owner. Additionally, as pointed out in the gcc@ thread, contributions coming into the gcc tree wouldn't have anything other than the gpl license attached to them and that would likely make them problematic to re-distribute from your tree with the dual gpl/artistic license. In simpler words, this is still far from straightforward. I think you're slightly incorrect, Brad. DigitalMars still owns the copyright to the original source (call it copy A). A fork (called copy B) is donated to the FSF. DigitalMars still gets to make changes to copy A and license them as it sees fit. Copy B is part of the GCC codebase and would evolve separately. Moving changes between them would require the same kind of donation process as the original transfer. Folks making changes to the DMD FE would have to contribute those changes to FSF as well to get them into copy B and vice versa. My apologies if that's the same as what you said. I read your comment a couple of times and was a bit confused. I'd still love for there to be fewer split efforts on the compiler front, so I do encourage trying to find a workable solution.. but tread carefully. The GCC java front end currently uses the Eclipse compiler to produce bytecode and then compiles the bytecode to native. But that's the only front end I'm aware of that isn't fully integrated into the GCC tree. The D front end doesn't produce a portable intermediate representation like that so I think it would be harder to always use the latest DMD front end. I see this possibility as Walter giving GCC a running start so that the D ecosystem has another viable compiler option available with relatively low effort. In the end, the language spec should be the thing that unifies the D community rather than the adhoc definition provided by a particular front end implementation. It's just a matter of how to get there. Later, Jerry
Re: D compiler as part of GCC
Jerry Quinn wrote: I think you're slightly incorrect, Brad. DigitalMars still owns the copyright to the original source (call it copy A). A fork (called copy B) is donated to the FSF. DigitalMars still gets to make changes to copy A and license them as it sees fit. Copy B is part of the GCC codebase and would evolve separately. Moving changes between them would require the same kind of donation process as the original transfer. Folks making changes to the DMD FE would have to contribute those changes to FSF as well to get them into copy B and vice versa. As best I could tell there were two options, the one Brad was referring to[1], and the one you asked about. In the end, the language spec should be the thing that unifies the D community rather than the adhoc definition provided by a particular front end implementation. It's just a matter of how to get there. I think Brad was refering to the donation process that is required for propogating changes from DM to GCC and visa versa. Since GCC will be using the same front end, it would make since that patches should be applied to both reducing duplicate effort in fixing bugs. I think that at this time, contributers to the front end would not have a problem with making these donations. However in the feature, you might see more people contributing to GCC and not want to donate it for GPL/Artistic... And when that happens I don't think Walter would care that GCC is getting more attention. 1. http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-01/msg00432.html
Re: D compiler as part of GCC
On 1/24/2010 11:34 AM, Jesse Phillips wrote: Jerry Quinn wrote: I think you're slightly incorrect, Brad. DigitalMars still owns the copyright to the original source (call it copy A). A fork (called copy B) is donated to the FSF. DigitalMars still gets to make changes to copy A and license them as it sees fit. Copy B is part of the GCC codebase and would evolve separately. Moving changes between them would require the same kind of donation process as the original transfer. Folks making changes to the DMD FE would have to contribute those changes to FSF as well to get them into copy B and vice versa. As best I could tell there were two options, the one Brad was referring to[1], and the one you asked about. In the end, the language spec should be the thing that unifies the D community rather than the adhoc definition provided by a particular front end implementation. It's just a matter of how to get there. I think Brad was refering to the donation process that is required for propogating changes from DM to GCC and visa versa. Since GCC will be using the same front end, it would make since that patches should be applied to both reducing duplicate effort in fixing bugs. I think that at this time, contributers to the front end would not have a problem with making these donations. However in the feature, you might see more people contributing to GCC and not want to donate it for GPL/Artistic... And when that happens I don't think Walter would care that GCC is getting more attention. 1. http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-01/msg00432.html The key issue: Can one piece of code have two copyrights on it. I'm no lawyer, but I'm almost certain the answer is NO. That's the question that Walter asked to have clarified, but that's not the question that was asked. Asking the gcc developers is also a bad idea since they're not lawyers. The only way to really handle this correctly is to have lawyers do the question asking of lawyers. Having lay people (including myself) as intermediaries and interpreters is just wrong. The rest is details about dealing with code under multiple licenses and transferring changes that are licensed differently between the two code bases. That clarify anything? Later, Brad
Re: D compiler as part of GCC
Brad Roberts wrote: That's the question that Walter asked to have clarified, but that's not the question that was asked. Asking the gcc developers is also a bad idea since they're not lawyers. The only way to really handle this correctly is to have lawyers do the question asking of lawyers. Having lay people (including myself) as intermediaries and interpreters is just wrong. You're probably right, the only way to do this is to consult a lawyer. That's going to be thousands of dollars. And frankly, I've never worked with a lawyer who was willing to commit to any particular legal opinion anyway.
Re: D compiler as part of GCC
On 1/24/2010 2:13 PM, Walter Bright wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: That's the question that Walter asked to have clarified, but that's not the question that was asked. Asking the gcc developers is also a bad idea since they're not lawyers. The only way to really handle this correctly is to have lawyers do the question asking of lawyers. Having lay people (including myself) as intermediaries and interpreters is just wrong. You're probably right, the only way to do this is to consult a lawyer. That's going to be thousands of dollars. And frankly, I've never worked with a lawyer who was willing to commit to any particular legal opinion anyway. You're probably versed enough to do the talking for yourself with one of the FSF lawyers. Chances are that might actually not cost you anything.
Re: D compiler as part of GCC
Brad Roberts, el 24 de enero a las 14:23 me escribiste: On 1/24/2010 2:13 PM, Walter Bright wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: That's the question that Walter asked to have clarified, but that's not the question that was asked. Asking the gcc developers is also a bad idea since they're not lawyers. The only way to really handle this correctly is to have lawyers do the question asking of lawyers. Having lay people (including myself) as intermediaries and interpreters is just wrong. You're probably right, the only way to do this is to consult a lawyer. That's going to be thousands of dollars. And frankly, I've never worked with a lawyer who was willing to commit to any particular legal opinion anyway. You're probably versed enough to do the talking for yourself with one of the FSF lawyers. Chances are that might actually not cost you anything. Exactly, I think the FSF knows about laws and have some lawyers to help you. -- Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca) http://llucax.com.ar/ -- GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145 104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05) --
