The dmd compiler license

[hasen]

Mike Parker wrote:
> Michiel Helvensteijn wrote:
>> Daniel Keep wrote:
>>
>>> Walter has a test suite for DMD, and there's the huge one on (I think)
>>> puremagic.
>>>
>>> OH NO!  All our programs will stop compiling on Jan 1 2000... wait...
>>>
>>> I think the existence of these forums and the bugtracker says otherwise.
>>
>> Relax. I'm not saying that those things are true, but they ARE in the
>> license. And I'm saying that if everything in that license were true, 
>> those
>> are the lines I'd worry about.
>>
>> You've got to admit, it's a pretty strange license.
>>
> 
> IIRC, Walter said that's the legacy Symantec license and he can't change 
> it.

Who is this Symantec entity that's preventing D from being truely open 
source and forcing Walter to put crap in the license?

Are they the same Symantec at http://www.symantec.com/ ?

Anyway, what portions of the backend are from Symantec?

How feasibly would it be to rewrite that portion as free software (in 
the GNU sense)?