Re: SGI releases IA64 C C++ and F90 compiler under GPL

[Toon Moene <toon at moene dot indiv dot nluug dot nl>]

Richard Stallman wrote:

> I wrote (1, 2, 3):

>     1. Apparently, SGI didn't assign copyright to the FSF, but retained
>        it.  Therefore, the compiler cannot be part of GCC (yes/no?)
> 
> RMS> That is correct.
> 
>     2. But the code is GPL'd - that means that we can rip out parts and
>        use them in GNU Fortran 95 (yes/no?)
> 
> RMS> GNU Fortran 95 is also FSF-copyrighted, so we can't use it.
> 
>     3. Or even take the compiler as a whole and try to retarget it to
>        the current GCC backend infrastructure (yes/no?)
> 
> RMS> I don't understand what this would mean, or why we might want to 
> RMS> do it.  But it seems like a bad idea to plan on making use of a 
> RMS> GCC front end that we can't include in GCC.

OK - that's clear so far.  In the mean time, Niels Kristian Bech Jensen,
who helps us with GNU Fortran 95, came with the following question:

<QUOTE>
Still I think we should assign copyright of all our changes to the SGI 
compiler to FSF (if we choose that route). That way it will be (legally) 
easy to include the new Fortran compiler in the gcc suite if SGI assigns 
their copyright to FSF.

Toon, you could ask RMS for his opinion on this scenario when you 
contact him.
</QUOTE>

There are more people asking me to try to convince SGI to assign
copyright to the FSF.  I do not know whether this would be possible,
much less whether this would be easy, but Niels' question seems to be
relevant.  Do you have an opinion on that ?

BTW, is there any risk involved having us, who are involved in GNU
Fortran 95, take a look at the SGI source code ?

Thanks,

-- 
Toon Moene - mailto:toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phoneto: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
GNU Fortran 77: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77_news.html
GNU Fortran 95: http://g95.sourceforge.net/ (under construction)