D port of dmd: Lexer, Parser, AND CodeGenerator fully operational

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday, March 08, 2012 03:12:48 Zach the Mystic wrote:
> On Thursday, 8 March 2012 at 01:43:26 UTC, Daniel Murphy wrote:
> > "Zach the Mystic" <reachMINUSTHISzachgmail at dot.com> wrote in
> > message
> > news:afqmbmvuvizvgfooefqj at forum.dlang.org...
> > 
> >> I'll gladly put a license on it if the leaders of the
> >> community tell me which one to use ( Artistic, libpng, Boost ).
> >> 
> >> Zach
> > 
> > It will need to be the same license as the frontend
> > (GPL/Artistic).  It
> > should be at the top of each c++ source file.
> 
> It looks like the license is going to have to be GPL because it
> says so strictly in dmd's readme.txt. Somehow that license scares
> me, though. The "Free Software Foundation" seems like a very
> Orwellian institution to me. I hope it doesn't scare users away.

If you took it from ddmd, then it's definitely going to have to be GPL.

Now, there is interest in having a D parser and lexer in Phobos. I don't know 
if your version will fit the bill (e.g. it must have a range-based API), but we 
need one at some point. The original idea was to more or less directly port 
dmd's lexer and parser with some adjustments to the API as necessary 
(primarily to make it range-based). But no one has had the time to complete 
such a project yet (I originally volunteered to do it, but I just haven't had 
the time).

When that project was proposed, Walter agreed to let that port be Boost rather 
than GPL (since he holds the copyright and the port would be going in Phobos, 
which uses boost).

The problem with what you have (even if the API and implementation were 
perfect) is that it comes from ddmd, which had other contributors working on 
it. So, you would have to get permission from not only Walter but all of the 
relevant ddmd contributors. If you were able to _that_, and it could get 
passed the review process, then what you've done could be put into Phobos. But 
that requires that you take the time and effort to take care of getting the 
appropriate permissions, making sure that the API and implementation are 
acceptable for Phobos, and putting it through the Phobos review process. It 
would be great if you could do that though.

- Jonathan M Davis