[OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> Just to clarify on this point: There are nonfree frontends you can buy in
> order to build your own compiler, such as the one from Edison Design Group. I
> know Texas Instruments uses it to build a proprietary compiler for their
> chipsets.  The GPL has not stopped this from happening, it's just prevented
> them from using free software, and thus the community from receiving any of
> their work (which a looser open source license may have permitted).

If they were willing to distribute their frontend under a weak license
(as used in LLVM), it would work just fine with GCC's license.
So I strongly suspect that if GCC's license were weak it would make no
difference: they simply want to keep their code proprietary.

> The GPL is polarizing: There's a group of people who use only that, and a
> group who use none of it.

Indeed.  But not for real legal/technical reasons.
It's due to political/ideological reasons.  IMNSHO,of course,

To a first approximation, in my experience, weak licenses are promoted
by people who don't like to say "free software" (and even less talk
about software freedom) while people who use the word "free software" or
"software freedom" will usually promote the GPL.


        Stefan