Re: [Caml-list] Ocaml license - why not GPL?

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 08:03:47AM +0100, Alex Baretta wrote:
> Jacques Garrigue wrote:
> 
> >To the best of my knowledge, Trolltech decided to release a GPL'ed
> >version of Qt because the QPL is not compatible with the GPL, which is
> >no surprise at all: by definition the GPL is only compatible with
> >itself, or strictly weaker licenses, like BSD or LGPL.
> >
> >This is less of a problem with ocaml, because the part covered by the
> >QPL is the compiler, not the library, so this should only concern
> >persons hacking the compiler itself.
> >
> >Jacques Garrigue
> 
> Hmmm... This is an interesting point! The toplevel library includes the 
> compiler code, which is licensed under the QPL, but yet somehow must be 
> allowed to link to GPLed libraries and programs. If the toplevel library 
>  may not be linked with GPLed code, then the toplevel itself become 
> hardly usable, and a significant portion of my code, which is GPLed and 
> links the toplevel library, would be illegal.

Indeed.

> Might the caml breeders please comment on this issue?

This is an issue mostly ignored right now, where there is no clear will to
solve it, and given the small case of code concerned, nobody bothered.

That said, given the restrictions of the QPL, the GPL compatibility may be
solved by those modification the ocaml team applied  to 3.08.2, or future
modifications.

Another solution is to licence differently the toplevel code.

Friendly,

Sven Luther