Re: SN backend GPL or LGPL? (was: SourceNav release...)

[Syd Polk <jazzman@bayarea.net>]

On Wednesday, February 13, 2002, at 08:21 , Robert Hartley wrote:

> If we did have the back end torn off of SN, would that make everything
> that used also GPL?
>
> Can we take SN type GPL code, turn it into a library, and then use it in
> an LGPL way?

No, Red Hat made us release everything as GPL'd. Since Red Hat owns the 
copyright, you can contact them for a version with LPGL'd backend.

>
> What if we had some sort of Corba type middle ware that provided a
> decent distributed API, without actually linking the code in.  Would any
> application that connected to it still be bound by the GPL?

I don't think so. As long as you are not linking any of the libraries, 
you should be ok.

>
> I am trying to find out here if there is any room for commercial
> developers to contribute to SN.  It would be a shame to let it all go to
> waste.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Robert
>
>
>> From: Mo DeJong <supermo at bayarea dot net>
>> To: "Eray Ozkural (exa)" <erayo at cs dot bilkent dot edu dot tr>
>> Cc: sourcenav at sources dot redhat dot com
>> Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 09:45:27 -0800
>> Subject: Re: SourceNav release ...
>
>> I think the right solution is to turn the SN backend into a
>> library. Even if you don't reuse the code, the ideas that are
>> there have years of effort behind them and they do work. It should
>> make use of Berkeley DB to store symbols but through an API so
>> that people can swap out other database layers if they want to. It
>> should also provide a nice two phase parse and dump into symbol DB
>> sequence that is easily inspected. Just figuring out what and
>> where the problem with a parser is can be the most difficult part
>> of fixing a problem. Also, it is absolutely critical that a well
>> defined regression test framework is developed as part of the
>> library.
>
>
Syd Polk
QA and Integration Manager, Mac OS X Development Tools
+1 408 974-0577