Xref: utzoo comp.lang.perl:1890 comp.sys.apollo:5933 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!snorkelwacker!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl,comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: Why perl can't ship as HP/Apollo base software Message-ID: Date: 25 Jul 90 19:49:30 GMT References: <4b8c2cb1.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <1678@tuvie> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Followup-To: comp.sys.apollo Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 50 In-reply-to: mike@tuvie's message of 13 Jul 90 12:03:22 GMT In article <1678@tuvie> mike@tuvie (Inst.f.Techn.Informatik) writes: | In article <4b8c2cb1.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>, carlton@apollo.HP.COM (Carlton B. Hommel) writes: | > I've spent several hours over the past few weeks, trying to get perl included as | > part of the next base software release. It won't happen, for the following | > reasons. | > | > 1. The GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE | > Our legal department has explicitly told R&D that they are not allowed to do | > anything with any program that got anywhere near this document. While I don't | > want to start a flame war about GNU, our lawyers feel it is too full of holes, | > and is just an court challenge waiting to happen. This is not a reflection on | > Larry; I discussed potential ways around it with him. Heck, we aren't even | > allowed to use GNU utilities (gcc, bison, ...) to produce binaries for product | > shipment. | > | I think the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE does *NOT* prohibit HP/Apollo from | distributing perl with DOMAIN/OS. Quite on the contrary, the FSF explicitly say | that companies should ship this stuff with their software. Of course, | WITHOUT BILLING THE CUSTOMERS. | I think I remember having read somewhere that OSF want to make GNU cc their | `official' compiler? How will HP/Apollo follow this if the lawyers hate | the GNU License? Since I'm the main support person for GCC at OSF, I guess I'm the best person to answer this. To the best of my knowledge what I'll say below is the current policy, but since I'm not a lawyer, nor a high level manager, nor do I play them on television, I can't speak for OSF in an official capacity. Officially, GCC is not part of our OSF/1 release. This is because there was some concern amongst some of our customers about the GPL, and the fact that it is anticipated that some of the companies porting OSF/1 will be using their own inhouse compilers instead of GCC. We will ship our version of GCC somewhere in the release media, and people can use it as long as they adhere to the GPL. I believe we will be shipping other sources in a similar fashion like many other companies do with unsupported software. As a side note, I was one of the people at Data General to get the ball rolling to use GCC as the released compiler. It took some doing, but the DG lawyers felt they could live with the contract. I guess any legal document can be subject to different interpretations by different lawyers. -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA Do apple growers tell their kids money doesn't grow on bushes?