Re: sstream support

[mrs at wrs dot com (Mike Stump)]

> Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 17:04:19 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Nathan Myers <ncm@best.com>

> Mike Stump wrote:
> > When released, will the library be usable for commercial apps?  As I
> > read the current version, it isn't fit for any commercial apps.  Do
> > you plan on using a libgcc style on the final code?  If not, why not?
> > What problem isn't solved by the style copyright.

> I'm not sure I understand the question; I don't know what a "style
> copyright" is.

s/the/that/.

> The license is intended to allow unrestricted commercial and
> non-commercial use.

My reading of it doesn't allow that.

> If the license interferes with that, that's a bug.

Ah, this is useful to know.

> If you can characterize the bug, it can probably be fixed.  What use
> seems to be restricted that you think shouldn't be?

Let me turn this around on you, use the libgcc style copyright.  We
already do this for the two most important libraries with gcc/g++,
libgcc.a and libstdc++.a.  I don't know of any drawbacks to it, or any
downsides, and I have many years of experience with it.  Not only
that, but the rest of the industry have decades of experience with it.
Asking companies to have their lawyers review yet new clauses is a
real pain.  Trust me on this.  If it ain't broke, why fix it?

> If there were a pre-existing license that did what we wanted, of
> course we would use it.

Did you review libgcc's copyright for consideration?  Why doesn't is
work?

> The problem is that the GPL and the LGPL are both too restrictive
> for a library that mostly results in in-line code in users'
> programs.

I neither suggested the GPL nor the LGPL, I already know all about why
they cannot be used in a commercial setting.

> There hasn't been much work on free licenses for in-line libraries.

If a new clause is needed to permit #include of the library headers
into code, that seems like a fairly narrow addition, what is wrong
with the below?

For objects (meant to be 100% unchanged):

/* As a special exception, if you link this library with other files,
   some of which are compiled with GCC, to produce an executable,
   this library does not by itself cause the resulting executable
   to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
   This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why
   the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.  */

For headers (meant to follow the intent and spirit of the above and
almost all of the wording of the above, but tuned specifically for a
header file):

/* As a special exception, if you include this header file by other
   files, some of which are compiled with GCC, to produce an
   executable, this header file does not by itself cause the resulting
   executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.  This
   exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
   executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.  */


Thanks for your consideration and time.