On 19/01/17 12:04 PM, Ben Franksen wrote:

Besides, GNU's cpp is certainly GPL licensed; I wonder why different standards are applied here.

GNU's cpp is not the only one around. I have the Sun/Oracle compilers, which don't use GNU cpp; I had the Intel compilers, which don't use GNU cpp; there's the preprocessor that comes with lcc, which isn't GNU cpp; and I also have mcpp and warp (in D) and jcpp (in Java). There must be others out there.

Am 19.01.2017 um 02:21 schrieb Brandon Allbery:

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 8:17 PM, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:

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On 19/01/17 12:04 PM, Ben Franksen wrote:

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Besides, GNU's cpp is certainly GPL licensed; I wonder why different standards are applied here.

GNU's cpp is not the only one around.

Which gets at the real point: these compilers come with the system or are otherwise provided by the vendor for more general purposes. (If someone downloaded icc and used its cpp, monitoring license compliance is their problem).

Someone with corporate lawyers to satisfy may well need to avoid GPL, so they would use neither gcc nor cpphs

This would be a problem only if they anticipate a need to distibute modified versions of cpphs or other sorts of work derived from it. How probable is that? To re-iterate, GPL in no way restricts usage, not even modification (for whatever purpose), merely the re-distribution of derived work. The whole argument strikes me as a transparent attempt to discredit GPL licensed software, brough forward by certain parties that, for political reasons, dislike GPL and want to spead FUD against it. Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

Am 22.01.2017 um 17:18 schrieb Brandon Allbery:

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 11:14 AM, Ben Franksen wrote:

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This would be a problem only if they anticipate a need to distibute modified versions of cpphs or other sorts of work derived from it.

Corporate lawyers are not interested in *your* interpretation of GPL, only their own.

It is not "my" intepretation, rather it is the "official" interpretation of the GPL according to the people who created it (the FSF).

And most of them won't touch GPL3 or even LGPL3 with a ten foot pole. Shouting your interpretation of it at them won't change anything.

Do you have any evidence to support this statement? I ask because if what you say is true, most companies willfully and severely restrict their options. For instance, a company that employs lawyers who "won't touch GPL3 or even LGPL3 with a ten foot pole" could not use Linux in any way (the kernel is GPL licensed), nor e.g. Android (based on Linux kernel). I have no data on how many companies in the world use Linux. What I do know is that many companies, even big corporations, actually support the Linux kernel with code (e.g. drivers), thus triggering the most restricting clauses in the GPL. For instance, Volkswagen AG has contributed socketcan to the kernel. Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

Am 23.01.2017 um 21:15 schrieb Brandon Allbery:

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 2:55 PM, Ben Franksen wrote:

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Do you have any evidence to support this statement? I ask because if what you say is true, most companies willfully and severely restrict their options.

I suppose Apple isn't evidence. Perhaps Apple is a figment of my imagination? And no, they are not a singleton.

Are you saying that Apple's lawyers are afraid of litigation because of GPL infringement? I very much doubt that. I think Apple is just opposed to GPL because their business model is built around proprietary hard- and software. They are against GPL because they *do* want to just grab stuff and sell it as closed source.

Additionally, it's not hard to find past discussions of integrating cpphs into ghc, which were effectively blocked by many people reporting that corporate lawyers would force them to stop using ghc if it happened.

I have no doubt that there are companies and/or lawyers like that. What I doubt is that this is the overwhelming majority, as you seemed to suggest ("...most corporate lawyers..."). All the evidence you and Sven provided is merely anecdotal.

GPL3 is *toxic* in the corporate world.

The wording you choose to express this suggests that either you agree with this point of view or else have listened too much to the wrong people, adopting their jargon.

Doesn't matter what RMS and co. claim outside the license itself; what decides reality is what lawyers determine from the working of the license, and their willingness to face court challenges based thereon.

Are there, at least, public statements on the net (by such lawyers), preferably with some sort of justification? Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

Am 23.01.2017 um 22:37 schrieb Brandon Allbery:

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 4:10 PM, Ben Franksen wrote:

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I have no doubt that there are companies and/or lawyers like that. What I doubt is that this is the overwhelming majority, as you seemed to suggest ("...most corporate lawyers..."). All the evidence you and Sven provided is merely anecdotal.

Mrrr. I was trying to back that off a bit; the real issue is not that it's "most", it's "enough to make ghc problematic". The last thread about cpphs (quick search gets me https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/ghc-devs/2015-May/009106.html from the middle of it and containing a decent summary) indicated that a significant number of high profile Haskell users would be forced to drop Haskell if cpphs went into ghc, because they'd have to face the uphill battle of getting corporate lawyers to okay it again.

I can accept that.

"Just do it and fix the fallout afterward" is not a solution; once in, those lawyers would think twice about reinstating ghc if it were subsequently removed, because that's the safe stance legally speaking.

Ok. So it is not advisable to integrate cpphs in ghc. I have no problem with that. Could we, instead, make it easy to use cpphs as drop-in replacement for cpp, so that it gets used whenever when the CPP language pragma is in effect? On platforms where the standard CPP is the one by GNU, cpphs could even be made the default. Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

2017-01-23 20:55 GMT+01:00 Ben Franksen :

It is not "my" intepretation, rather it is the "official" interpretation of the GPL according to the people who created it (the FSF).

But "official" is not the same as "is accepted by any court". Of course the people who created the license have a biased view, but so do company lawyers (and the rest of the management): The "safe mode" for them is to say "no", you can't be blamed then and don't do anything wrong, at least not immediately. As a lot of things in life, such decisions are not driven by desire to improve the well-being of a greater entity (company/society/...), but purely personal interests.

Do you have any evidence to support this statement?

Something like this happened to me at least three times in my career, and even if it's not direct refusal to accept such licenses, there are quite a few companies (especially bigger ones) which require a *lenghty* process to get SW with such licenses approved. This doesn't exactly encourage engineers to take that route...

I ask because if what you say is true, most companies willfully and severely restrict their options.

There is no such thing as "the company", basically people are acting as individuals (see above).

For instance, a company that employs lawyers who "won't touch GPL3 or even LGPL3 with a ten foot pole" could not use Linux in any way (the kernel is GPL licensed), nor e.g. Android (based on Linux kernel). [...]

That's not true: If you take $$$ and e.g. license your RedHat Enterprise Linux/SLES/..., you have a legal entity (RedHat, SuSE, ...) which takes the responsibility before court, not *your* company. So that's the easy way for lawyers. Alas, there is no GHC/cpphs company of sufficient size for this to work in our case. Disclaimer: I don't say that this is a perfect situation, but it's just what I've experienced. Just shouting "GPL is fine, you can use it!" ignores the darker side of company life... Cheers, S.

Am 23.01.2017 um 21:21 schrieb Sven Panne:

2017-01-23 20:55 GMT+01:00 Ben Franksen :

...

It is not "my" intepretation, rather it is the "official" interpretation of the GPL according to the people who created it (the FSF).

But "official" is not the same as "is accepted by any court". Of course the people who created the license have a biased view, but so do company lawyers (and the rest of the management): The "safe mode" for them is to say "no", you can't be blamed then and don't do anything wrong, at least not immediately. As a lot of things in life, such decisions are not driven by desire to improve the well-being of a greater entity (company/society/...), but purely personal interests.

I can understand how this works. However, I would think that this is also a matter of weighing risks against opportunities. I would really like to talk to such a lawyer (in private) and ask him to explain to me how he thinks the GPL could cause legal risk for a company that merely uses the software.

...

Do you have any evidence to support this statement?

Something like this happened to me at least three times in my career, and even if it's not direct refusal to accept such licenses, there are quite a few companies (especially bigger ones) which require a *lenghty* process to get SW with such licenses approved. This doesn't exactly encourage engineers to take that route...

Ok, still anecdotal evidence. Yes, there are such companies/lawyers. Perhaps this is enough to justify caution. I would still like to see some numbers.

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I ask because if what you say is true, most companies willfully and severely restrict their options.

There is no such thing as "the company", basically people are acting as individuals (see above).

Ah, well. So if the CEO thinks opportunities trump the risks he/she *could* just overrule whatever the lawyers say.

...

For instance, a company that employs lawyers who "won't touch GPL3 or even LGPL3 with a ten foot pole" could not use Linux in any way (the kernel is GPL licensed), nor e.g. Android (based on Linux kernel). [...]

That's not true: If you take $$$ and e.g. license your RedHat Enterprise Linux/SLES/..., you have a legal entity (RedHat, SuSE, ...) which takes the responsibility before court, not *your* company. So that's the easy way for lawyers. Alas, there is no GHC/cpphs company of sufficient size for this to work in our case.

I really don't understand that kind of logic. In particular, how exactly does getting GPL'd software from a vendor sich as RedHat allow the client to shift legal risks to that vendor? And what about RedHat themselves? Wouldn't *their* lawyers warn them against taking on such risks? This just doesn't make any sense to me.

Disclaimer: I don't say that this is a perfect situation, but it's just what I've experienced. Just shouting "GPL is fine, you can use it!" ignores the darker side of company life...

Perhaps. I suspect that whatever corporate lawyers may say against GPL is simply irrational fear and stupid conservatism. BTW, are there *any* examples of court decisions against companies because of GPL infringements that may lend substance to these vague claims of terrible risks when using GPL licensed software? Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

2017-01-23 22:42 GMT+01:00 Ben Franksen :

Am 23.01.2017 um 21:21 schrieb Sven Panne:

...

[...] Something like this happened to me at least three times in my career, and even if it's not direct refusal to accept such licenses, there are quite a few companies (especially bigger ones) which require a *lenghty* process to get SW with such licenses approved. This doesn't exactly encourage engineers to take that route... [...]

Ok, still anecdotal evidence.

Well, seriously: What did you expect? That somebody here comes up with numbers like: "X% of company lawyers prefer to take the safe (i.e. ban GPL) route because of personal reasons and don't care about the greater good of their company"? Interesting numbers, sure, but a bit hard to figure out, I guess...

Yes, there are such companies/lawyers. Perhaps this is enough to justify caution. I would still like to see some numbers.

OK, how to get them?

...

There is no such thing as "the company", basically people are acting as individuals (see above).

Ah, well. So if the CEO thinks opportunities trump the risks he/she *could* just overrule whatever the lawyers say. [...]

Same reasoning again: You basically get promoted by avoiding disaster (= law suit), not by being a hero who took some risks. Or at least take the risks and get quickly promoted away, before disaster happens. :-P So yes, they could overrule, but from my anecdotal evidence, this rarely happens. Would you like to be the one who said "I didn't care about what my lawyers said, and now we have this multi-million dollar law suit."? [...] Perhaps. I suspect that whatever corporate lawyers may say against GPL

is simply irrational fear and stupid conservatism.

We could talk endlessly about this, and this might even be true, but it doesn't change the basic fact: Lawyers are there to avoid damage for the company, and so they act...

Why not write a new Haskell version of CPP with a more corporate-friendly OS license? (HPP ?)

On 23 Jan 2017, at 23:43, Ben Franksen wrote:

Am 23.01.2017 um 23:25 schrieb Sven Panne:

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2017-01-23 22:42 GMT+01:00 Ben Franksen : We could talk endlessly about this

Right. I am tired of it, too. I am ready to concede that there are /enough/ of these people around that it is a real problem for some Haskell users.

For me things are exactly the opposite: as a Haskell preprocessor, using cpphs is the much safer option compared to CPP. History has shown that e.g. the gcc developers change cpp's behaviour in ways that are incompatible with using cpp for anything other than C or C++, even if that means interpreting the C standard in quite a liberal way.

I would very much like to be able to use cpphs as a drop-in replacement for cpp and to be able to change the default cpp in a ghc configuration file, rather than at compile time (so I can still use a ghc packaged for my distro).

Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

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Andrew Butterfield School of Computer Science & Statistics Trinity College Dublin 2, Ireland

Am 24.01.2017 um 17:07 schrieb Anthony Cowley:

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On Jan 24, 2017, at 3:11 AM, Andrew Butterfield wrote:

Why not write a new Haskell version of CPP with a more corporate-friendly OS license?

(HPP ?)

I already wrote hpp, and it's been on hackage for a while now. Its test suite puts it through the spec conformance portion of the mcpp test suite, so one can be somewhat confident that it does the fiddly things correctly. That said, I did find and fix bugs when running it over lens (a sigil-rich environment, to be sure) during testing, so there may yet be Haskell code it doesn't play well with.

It is fairly fast, memory-efficient, written entirely in Haskell, on GitHub, and BSD-licensed.

That's like music (progressive rock, to be specific) in my ears! Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

I note that a company I worked for refused to have any GPL software on their machines, even GCC, due to legal advice. That was a couple of revisions of the GPL ago, but some scars last.

By "some scars last", do you mean "I'll stay away from that company"? Stefan

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...

I note that a company I worked for refused to have any GPL software on their machines, even GCC, due to legal advice. That was a couple of revisions of the GPL ago, but some scars last. By "some scars last", do you mean "I'll stay away from that company"? No, of course not. The key point was that we were a small company and would not have survived a law suit, win or lose.

I don't follow: the "keep away from GPL" stance seems to only make sense in the context of a very large corporation where the potential benefit of that one little tool (GHC) is dwarfed by the general risk of using things whose license can't be controlled via money. In the context of a small company, rather than a general stance, I'd expect it is worth looking at each specific case (since that one tool would likely represent a more significant portion of the overall set of tools in use), and drop the hysteria. Reality check: Has anyone ever heard of a company sued because they use a GPL'd tool? Ever? How 'bout in your wildest dream, maybe? Stefan

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Reality check: Has anyone ever heard of a company sued because they use a GPL'd tool? Ever? How 'bout in your wildest dream, maybe? I can list a few, mostly involving Linux.

Notice I said "use a GPL'd tool". The cases such as VMware or Linksys/Cisco are quite different from using GHC for development. Stefan

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Reality check: Has anyone ever heard of a company sued because they use a GPL'd tool? Ever? How 'bout in your wildest dream, maybe? I can list a few, mostly involving Linux.

One more thing: in your list, please include the number of years of negotiation before the lawsuit was filed. Stefan

Am 24.01.2017 um 16:24 schrieb Audun Skaugen:

ma., 23.01.2017 kl. 20.55 +0100, skrev Ben Franksen:

...

Do you have any evidence to support this statement? I ask because if what you say is true, most companies willfully and severely restrict their options. For instance, a company that employs lawyers who "won't touch GPL3 or even LGPL3 with a ten foot pole" could not use Linux in any way (the kernel is GPL licensed), nor e.g. Android (based on Linux kernel).

I have no data on how many companies in the world use Linux. What I do know is that many companies, even big corporations, actually support the Linux kernel with code (e.g. drivers), thus triggering the most restricting clauses in the GPL. For instance, Volkswagen AG has contributed socketcan to the kernel.

Actually, the Linux kernel is GPLv2 licenced[1]. I believe companies are more comfortable with version 2 than version 3.

[1]: https://www.kernel.org/category/faq.html

Same with cpphs: GPLv2 for the program, for the library it's LGPLv2, and there is also LICENCE-commercial which allows unrestricted distribution of the binary (w/o sources). Cheers Ben -- "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo." ― Scott Adams

Am 19.01.2017 um 02:17 schrieb Richard A. O'Keefe:

...

On 19/01/17 12:04 PM, Ben Franksen wrote:

...

Besides, GNU's cpp is certainly GPL licensed; I wonder why different standards are applied here.

GNU's cpp is not the only one around.

I did not mean to suggest that. Fine. What is the point you want to make with that listing?

I read you as saying that it was inappropriate to use any other licence before GCC's preprocessor is GPL-licensed, and I was making the point that alternatives (including proprietary and free) with different license are available.

Am 19.01.2017 um 02:17 schrieb Richard A. O'Keefe:

...

On 19/01/17 12:04 PM, Ben Franksen wrote:

...

Besides, GNU's cpp is certainly GPL licensed; I wonder why different standards are applied here.

GNU's cpp is not the only one around.

I did not mean to suggest that. Fine. What is the point you want to make with that listing?

I read you as saying that it was inappropriate to use any other licence before GCC's preprocessor is GPL-licensed, and I was making the point that alternatives (including proprietary and free) with different licences are available.