Free the DMD backend

[Basile B. via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 2 June 2016 at 18:09:15 UTC, Eugene Wissner wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 June 2016 at 17:54:10 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
>> On Thursday, 2 June 2016 at 17:32:25 UTC, Eugene Wissner wrote:
>>> On Thursday, 2 June 2016 at 17:04:25 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
>>>> On Sunday, 29 May 2016 at 03:52:33 UTC, open-source-guy 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> this is a short ping about one of D's weaknesses - the 
>>>>> restrictive license for the backend. IIRC [1, 2, 3] the 
>>>>> status is that because some parts have been written by 
>>>>> Walter while he was employed by Symantec, it can't get an 
>>>>> open-source license.
>>>>> When I read the backend license [4], I read the following:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The Software is copyrighted and comes with a single user 
>>>>>> license,
>>>>> and may not be redistributed. If you wish to obtain a 
>>>>> redistribution license,
>>>>> please contact Digital Mars.
>>>>>
>>>>> This actually means that all the 366 forks on Github would 
>>>>> require approval by Digital Mars.
>>>>> So luckily neither Symantec nor Digital Mars seem to bother 
>>>>> much about the license, so why can't it be changed in an 
>>>>> free & open source license that allows
>>>>> free redistribution and modification?
>>>>>
>>>>> This would also make it possible to distribute dmd 
>>>>> out-of-the-box on the two biggest Linux distributions 
>>>>> Debian and Ubuntu [5, 6].
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] http://tomash.wrug.eu/blog/2009/03/06/free-the-dmd/
>>>>> [2] 
>>>>> http://forum.dlang.org/post/ikwvgrccoyhvvizcjvxd@forum.dlang.org
>>>>> [3] 
>>>>> https://semitwist.com/articles/article/view/dispelling-common-d-myths
>>>>>
>>>>> [4] 
>>>>> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/blob/master/src/backendlicense.txt
>>>>> [5] 
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines
>>>>> [6] 
>>>>> https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-dfsg
>>>>
>>>> Let's drop DMD and move to LDC (as the new DMD). Again and 
>>>> again people find bugs in the old backend. I know that it'll 
>>>> be hard for Bright to throw its little baby in the water but 
>>>> seriously it's not possible anymore.
>>>>
>>>> Symantec is not interested to left its licence to Bright but 
>>>> they are probably neither interested to do anything with 
>>>> this bugged backend. Let's drop it.
>>>> If they wanna keep the rights on this ok. Let them their "so 
>>>> loved but not intersting" backend to them and move to 
>>>> something else for D default compiler.
>>>
>>> I still would prefer if this "something else" would GDC .
>>
>> When I look at how many messages there are on the GDC news 
>> group compared to LDC's one it's clear that GDC must has been 
>> more popular at a time. But this time is done.
>
> Ok, if you say so :D

It's also that LDC is at front end 2.070 and GDC 2.067 ;););)