Re: Question about code licensing

[Joe Buck <Joe dot Buck at synopsys dot COM>]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 07:00:44AM -0800, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > I think the main reason is that DMD front end sources are dual licensed
> > with GPL and Artistic License.  The DMD backend is not under an open
> > source license (personal use only), so the Artistic License is how the
> > two are integrated.  The fork is required to allow DMD to continue under
> > its current license scheme.
> >
> > It also means that fixes to the GCC front end would not be copyable to
> > the DMD front end going forward.
> 
> Strictly speaking, that's not true.  Even if the submitter would still 
> be required to have copyright assignment for the FSF, they could be 
> copyable to the DMD front-end _as long as the submitter himself sends 
> them for inclusion there too_.  This is the practical significance of 
> the license grantback from the FSF to the author.

This is getting off-topic for this list.  Still, if this were the plan
(and I don't know whether it is or not), I think that the FSF would reject
it, because it would implicitly ask all GCC developers to help out with
a proprietary product.

There would also be a huge conflict-of-interest issue if the official
maintainer of the D front end were in a position to accept or reject
patches based not on their technical merit, but on whether the contributor
agrees to separately contribute them under the dual-license scheme, and
his/her employer had an interest in this issue.