[Haskell-cafe] Re: Hmm, what license to use?

"Magnus Therning" wrote:

On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Simon Marlow wrote: [..]

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That would be serious indeed, but before changing my ways I'd need more information to back up your statement. Could someone confirm that code from one installed module can be inlined into another?

When optimisation is turned on, you have virtually no control over how much code GHC will copy from one module to another, which is why several people (me included) have expressed concerns about the use of an unmodified LGPL with Haskell code in the past. I believe at one stage we even asked for clarification from the FSF, but I don't recall getting an answer.

Thanks for this clarification. In my limited understanding of licenses this would mean that in the Haskell world LGPL and GPL basically are the same. I suppose it's an excellent example of just how difficult it is for "law" to keep up with technology, even when the "law" is written by technologists.

I guess it means I might as well relicense all my Haskell code under GPL instead.

I'm also disappointed to hear that the FSF hasn't bothered responding to this issue. What part of the FSF was approached? Does someone still have copies of the letters/email that was sent?

IMHO, and IANAL, inlining core from .hi's shouldn't be any different than calling a macro out of a .h... http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/newlicen.htm might be an interesting read regarding that topic, as wxwidgets heavily relies on macros for declarations. In another sphere (lua, that is) there is spring[1], whose developers more or less say that the FSF has lost its mind by interpreting mods as derived works, thus requiring them to be published under the GPL. [1] http://spring.clan-sy.com -- (c) this sig last receiving data processing entity. Inspect headers for copyright history. All rights reserved. Copying, hiring, renting, performance and/or broadcasting of this signature prohibited.