letter to GCC Steering Committee, Streamnovation Ltd.

letter to GCC Steering Committee, Streamnovation Ltd.

[Adam Rak]

Dear GCC Steering Committee,

We are a forming company (StreamNovation Ltd.) from Hungary, and we
would like to ask your attitude about our plans. We are intending to
implement a plugin for GCC 4.5 which makes it possible to utilize the
GPU (graphics processing unit) semi-automatically (later
fully-automatically). We are planning to implement it as a free
software according to GPL, but we would also like to sell it in a box,
and get paid for personal support, guarantee and education.

The basic idea is to make the GPU kind of OpenMP (Open
Multi-Processing is an application programming interface (API) that
supports multi-platform shared memory multiprocessing programming in
C, C++). The GCC user marks the loop, and GCC creates a heterogeneous
binary code which runs the kernel on GPU, generated from the original
source code. We expect huge attention for this field in the next few
years. We think our plugin is in harmony with the GCC development
mission statement.

We are ready to follow any of your instructions according to GPL,
source code publicity, and legal compatibility with GPU manufacturers'
software.



Please let us know the conventions we have to follow and do not
hesitate to ask questions.

Best regards,

Ádám Rák

StreamNovation Ltd.

Práter u. 50/a. Budapest, H-1083 Hungary

Phone: +36 20 9677 199

Email: adam.rak@streamnovation.com

Re: letter to GCC Steering Committee, Streamnovation Ltd.

[Ian Lance Taylor]

Adam Rak <adam.rak@streamnovation.com> writes:

> We are a forming company (StreamNovation Ltd.) from Hungary, and we
> would like to ask your attitude about our plans. We are intending to
> implement a plugin for GCC 4.5 which makes it possible to utilize the
> GPU (graphics processing unit) semi-automatically (later
> fully-automatically). We are planning to implement it as a free
> software according to GPL, but we would also like to sell it in a box,
> and get paid for personal support, guarantee and education.
>
> The basic idea is to make the GPU kind of OpenMP (Open
> Multi-Processing is an application programming interface (API) that
> supports multi-platform shared memory multiprocessing programming in
> C, C++). The GCC user marks the loop, and GCC creates a heterogeneous
> binary code which runs the kernel on GPU, generated from the original
> source code. We expect huge attention for this field in the next few
> years. We think our plugin is in harmony with the GCC development
> mission statement.
>
> We are ready to follow any of your instructions according to GPL,
> source code publicity, and legal compatibility with GPU manufacturers'
> software.

I am not a member of the gcc steering committee.

That said, this is a question better directed to the Free Software
Foundation.  The FSF holds the copyright for gcc and they wrote the
license.  The license text is, of course, readily available, so you
could also consult legal advice in your own country.

The rule for gcc plugins are described at

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gcc-exception.html


My personal opinion as an individual contributor to gcc: I don't know
precisely what you mean by "sell it in a box."  You are permitted to
sell any GPL program in a box, provided you include source code (or an
offer to get source code) and provided you permit purchasers of the box
to redistribute the code themselves.  The GPL also always permits you to
"get paid for personal support, guarantee and education."


You may it useful to read the GPL FAQ published by the Free Software
Foundation:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Ian