The D license

[Robert Clipsham]

On 10/03/10 14:41, Andrew Marlow wrote:
> I just downloaded and installed DMD for Windoze and had a look at the file license.txt installed in C:\D. It contains some rather worrying text:
>
> ---
> The Software is not generally available software. It has not undergone
> testing and may contain errors. The Software was not designed to operate after December 31, 1999.
> ---

I believe this is some sort of legacy from when Symantec owned the code, 
it can safely be ignored, I think it has to be left in for legal reasons 
though, I'm not completely sure... I agree that it needs to go if 
possible :)

> This is followed by the usual sort of disclaimer. But it is not a good opening. And it closes with stuff that is even more worrying:
>
> ---
> 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 is correct. The DMD Front End is dual licensed under the GNU GPL 
version 1 and the Artistic License (both included with the source). The 
source for the backend is available, but is a single user license, as 
seen in backendlicense.txt.

> The FAQ taks about D being open source and it looks like the source zip may be downloaded (I haven't tried) but the warning above is a bit off-putting. Normally open source can be freely distributed, but not D, it seems. And what does the license entitle the user to do? It doesn't say. It doesn't even list things that are prohibited.

The FAQ at http://digitalmars.com/d/2.0/faq.html#q5 says what I said 
above, it isn't extremely clear, but it does :)

>
> Can the wording of this license be improved please? IMHO it should identify more clearly what users can and can't do. And surely it is expected to work after December 1999. It wouldn't hurt to assign the copyright more clearly either rather than just say it is copyrighted but not who/what the copright holder is, e.g.

That'd be nice, I guess it's up to Symantec what Walter can do with it 
though... I'm guessing they're being more restrictive than they need to 
be, in the event that something bad does happen they don't wanna get 
sued over it :)

>
> Copyright (c) 2010 Digital Mars Ltd. All rights reserved.
>
> Regards,
>
> Andrew Marlow
>