Re: OCaml's Cathedral & Bazaar (was Re: [Caml-list] Completeness of "Unix" run-time library)

[Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp>]

From: Richard Jones <rich@annexia.org>
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 03:10:20PM -0500, John Carr wrote:
> > Suppose we find a bug in ocaml that impacts our product.
> > Whose job is it to fix the bug?  Neither "a network of
> > hackers" nor "some academic researchers in France, if they
> > have the time" is an acceptable answer.

Well, I understand this is hard to explain to companies.
Yet I believe that we have a good record for correcting bugs.
It is not because we are academic researchers that we don't take
seriously our responsibilities.
(Microsoft is certainly not faster, and does not offer more guarantees.)
 
> This is really why the licensing of the compilers *does* matter.

Possibly, but may I remind you that ocaml is open-source?
The QPL is a recognized open-source license, even if it isn't GPL
compatible (but almost all open-source licenses are not
GPL-compatible).
Anybody is perfectly free to release fixes and improvements for ocaml,
including binary releases, as long as they provide a patch with
respect to the corresponding version of ocaml.

For me, it's not even clear that a public CVS based on ocaml would be
a problem: CVS actually works by creating diffs.

Could you explain by which mechanism a different license would help in
making ocaml's maintenance more reliable for companies?

Also note that all this is irrelevant to libraries, which are already
released under a slightly relaxed version of the LGPL.

Jacques Garrigue

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