Is D not-for-profit or not?!

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday 30 January 2011 10:14:58 Akakima wrote:
> >  I think you're mixing up "Open Source" with "Free Software".
> 
> No.
> 
> Aren't you mixing up free with $ ?
> 
> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
> 
> and read some of the history of the FSF.
> 
> There are free (0 $) products/software that comes with no source and a
> little freedom.
> 
> Some vendors associate free with 0$, an solely with $.
> By doing this, they put a price on freedom.
> 
> Freedom begins by free. There is a reason for this.
> 
> Exchanging money is a legitimate way of exchanging energy.
> Problems arise when this is the only way of exchange.
> 
> I think Walter is making an effort to go Open Source. His intentions are
> not clear to the mass because he never expressed them. He may not be at
> ease to do so.
> He sure did within the inner circle of D.
> 
> Look around. The world is becoming open.
> 
> There was a time, when Open Source was not invented, when giving away
> "source code", would have been viewed as a crime, a friend of mine, gaved
> me the source code of a fortran compiler.
> 
> That source code camed on microfilm. I was so excited. In a state of joy.
> I read all of it with a a microscope! I learned. I shared.

Yes, you're mixing up Open Source and Free Software. The FSF is about Free 
Software. They think that people have a right to source code, and that all 
source code should be free as in freedom. Open Source is much more pragmatic. 
It's about making the source available, because that results in better software. 
It's the difference between the philosophies of Richard Stallman and Linus 
Torvalds. It's a huge difference in attitude.

They _do_ tend to use the same licenses, since open vs free is very much a 
matter of attitude and goal rather than code, but there are gradations in 
licenses with GLP v3 being more of a Free Software license whereas BSD or Boost 
are more along the lines of Open Source, because they have fewer restrictions. 
Typically though, there's no real difference between an Open Source and Free 
Software project from a coding perspective.

The dmd frontend is open source. The backend can't be because Symantec owns it, 
but the code is available to view, and you can submit patches. I believe that 
gdc and LDC are fully open source. Phobos and druntime use the Boost license. 
They're definitely open source. Whether the intention of any of the contributors 
to those projects is to support Open Source, Free Software, or just work on code 
that they need or like is completely up to them.

If you want to use dmd, gdc, or LDC in an open source or free software project, 
you are free to do so. If you want to use them in proprietary projects, then you 
are free to do so. I really don't think that the dmd, druntime, or Phobos team 
is trying to make any kind of political statement here. As a whole, we are 
emmenently practical. Some of us may very well be big supporters of Free 
Software. I don't know. You'll have to talk to individual developers to know 
exactly how they feel.

But as a whole, we're just trying to get a solid language with solid tools out 
there, because we love the language, we want it to succeed, and we want to use 
it.

- Jonathan M Davis