Mass-enabling D => License question

[John Colvin via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 20 May 2014 at 22:50:45 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
> On Tuesday, 20 May 2014 at 20:44:57 UTC, Andre wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I like D due to its clear syntax and power. For a business 
>> application developer what is really missing is a full blown 
>> IDE which enables
>> Rapid Application Development.
>> => GUI
>> => Database
>> => Internet components
>> => Refactoring
>> => ... and a lot things more
>>
>> If I compare the time I need to develop a D application and a 
>> delphi
>> application there are several weeks between unfortunatelly
>> (my experience).
>>
>> I wonder whether it is possible from a license point of view to
>> develop an IDE for D and sell it? Of course there are license 
>> issues
>> due to fact that D must be integrated in the package but 
>> someone would
>> only pay for the IDE.
>> On the other side, a good IDE will mass enabled D for business 
>> application developer.
>>
>> If someone will create an IDE for D like Borland has done for 
>> Delphi
>> this would lead to an huge success for D in my opinion.
>>
>> What do you think? Would you appreciate such an IDE?
>>
>> Kind regards
>> André
>
> What licensing problems do you foresee? Bear in the mind that 
> although the dmd backend has a restrictive licence that 
> prohibits redistribution without permission, permission to 
> redistribute is normally easy to get from Walter. 
> Alternatively, if the clients computer does the download of dmd 
> from dlang.org as part of the IDE installer then you circumvent 
> the problem entirely.
>
> To the best of my (limited) knowledge, the open source licenses 
> used in all 3 main compilers do not prohibit redistribution 
> and/or selling for profit.

Also, note that linking to GPL licenced shared 
libraries/dlls/dylibs or whatever you use doesn't necessarily 
mean the GPL has got you wrapped in it's rather fuzzy web.  AKAIK 
it's a matter of debate and has never been tested in court, but 
it's enough for many current creators/distributors of closed 
source software for linux who call various GPL system libs via 
the shared library interfaces.


Also - and this is the biggest thing that people fail to realise 
in all software license debates - it is a practical impossibility 
to create a software license that is well defined and valid in 
all jurisdictions. For a global enterprise, almost *everything* 
is legally fuzzy.