Re: gcc-4.1-20080303 is now available

["Kaveh R. Ghazi" <ghazi at caip dot rutgers dot edu>]

From: "Mark Mitchell" <mark@codesourcery.com>

> Kaveh R. GHAZI wrote:
>
> > My understanding is that *users* of GCC are not impacted by the license
> > change.
>
> Some users certainly are impacted by the license change -- there are in 
> fact quite a few companies that disallow their users using any GPLv3 
> software!
>
> I think you're right that GPLv3 has no substantial impact on what you can 
> or cannot do with GCC, and therefore that most users -- once they and 
> their legal departments understand GPLv3 -- can go on using GCC in exactly 
> the ways they did when it was GPLv2.  But, that doesn't mean that it's not 
> a major surprise to have an update release have a new and different 
> license, with which you might not be familiar.

Then it all boils down to FUD.  And IMHO we're being complicit in it by 
validating and enabling it.

Some legal departments may prohibit using all GPLv3 software.  But since we 
haven't released gcc-4.1.3, users are not getting it anyway.  (I'd say very 
few users are adventurous enough to rely on svn or snapshots as Gerald 
suggested.)  At least by releasing 4.1.3 some (many? most?) users would get 
the benefit, and as more legal departments work through their fears more 
(all) users will eventually benefit.

I haven't heard anything that changes my opinion, I still think we should 
relicense the 4.1 branch and do one last release before closing it.

Am I alone here, or does anyone else agree with me? :-/

       --Kaveh
--
Kaveh R. Ghazi