On Thu, 2019-02-21 at 18:23 +0100, Paulo Matos wrote:
Hi,
libgccjit is released with GCC and therefore GPLv3.
This seems to mean, from my relatively low knowledge in this area,
that
all libraries linking to libgccjit to create bindings and libraries
and
applications linking to this library are forced into GPLv3.
I though LGPL was created with the purpose of stopping the viral
spread
of GPLv3. Was it the authors decision to make it GPLv3 instead of
LGPL -
which would have been, I guess, more flexible?
[I am not a lawyer, and I don't represent anyone here]
IIRC, my thinking at that time was that the GCC-as-shared-library
feature might be controversial (as well as a technical challenge), and
I didn't want to have to also deal with a license debate on top of
those two. Hence I went with the GPLv3 as a path of last resistance.
I haven't yet run into any issues with the license in my own work (but
all my work is free software, so...)
The FSF owns the copyright here. Perhaps a case could be made that it
might serve the FSF's strategic interests to allow some kind of dual
licensing of libgccjit, but I'm not sure either way. (It's not
something I want to spend my own cycles on pursuing, but if someone
else cares, fair enough; I suspect that that's more a topic for an FSF-
strategy-focused-list, rather than this mailing list, though).