The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Sean Kelly]

== Quote from Moritz Warning (moritzwarning at web.de)'s article
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:49:06 -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:
> > Walter Bright wrote:
> >> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> >>> Walter Bright wrote:
> >>>> I have explained this to the main Tango developers on multiple
> >>>> occasions. It is their right and privilege to license Tango as they
> >>>> see fit, and I respect that and so have not spoken out on it before.
> >>>> But in this thread I am being cast as a roadblock, which I feel is a
> >>>> little unfair, so I will loosen my tongue and speak up a bit :-)
> >>>
> >>> And we have on equally many occasions told you that the code you need
> >>> is available. :)
> >>
> >> I respectfully disagree. The Tango team has stopped short of providing
> >> a license to use the Tango code in Phobos with a reciprocal agreement
> >> that allows it to be distributed under the Phobos license. I also
> >> cannot accept something vague, it has to be explicit.
> >>
> >> I've dealt with lawyers many times, and spelling it out directly and
> >> explicitly avoids a lot of future potential problems. Furthermore, if
> >> Phobos has a wishy-washy legal pedigree, corporate lawyers will not buy
> >> off on allowing D to be used in their companies.
> >
> > Personally, I've never met a corporate lawyer who would authorize use of
> > Public Domain code, for two reasons.  First, the assumption seems to be
> > that PD code is really actually owned by someone and no one knows who
> > that is.  Second, lawyers (and build teams even moreso) very much like
> > having a responsible party, even if the license absolves the author of
> > any direct responsibility for code issues as most licenses do.
> >
> > Case in point, I've never been able to use Boost at any of my previous
> > jobs because the licensing scheme is too open.  Also, I've had to fight
> > tooth and nail to use BSD licensed code at work because of the
> > attribution requirement (that the library must be mentioned in
> > documentation accompanying any shipped product).
> >
> > All of the above was considered when working out a licensing scheme for
> > Tango.  We wanted a license that would allow Tango to be used by
> > everyone, first and foremost.  I could never have done that with Phobos
> > under the current license.
> >
> >> This issue must be settled in advance of looking at Tango, not after
> >> the fact.
> >
> > The contention is about the user code, I believe.  You have asked for
> > blanket permission to incorporate all of Tango as Public Domain code in
> > Phobos even though the only portion of the code you seem to care about
> > is the runtime.  As the sole maintainer of the runtime I have long since
> > given you permission to use that portion of the code as you see fit, but
> > this is obviously not sufficient.  I honestly have no idea how we can
> > proceed any further, given that I don't expect other Tango contributors
> > to agree to release their (user) code into the Public Domain.
> >
> >
> > Sean
> That issue will probably be sorted out (I hope).
> But that don't have to be done right now.
> There is no license issue with the Tango runtime,
> Work could be started with the runtime any time. - right?
> Walter? Sean?

I think so, but Walter apparently disagrees.


Sean