From: Bob Hutchison Date: 2005-07-27T15:38:03+09:00 Subject: Re: Lisp on Lines On Jul 26, 2005, at 11:55 PM, Joe Van Dyk wrote: > On 7/25/05, Lothar Scholz wrote: >> Here, in an image based system like LISP, free in the GPL sense is a >> very very >> bad idea. Only BSD image based systems are useable for commercial >> applications. This is a fundamental difference to the gcc compiler >> where the GPL makes sense. > > What do you mean by "image based system"? And what does that have to > do with the GPL? > In an image based system, like lisp or smalltalk, all software is loaded into memory and directly accessed. There is no concept of linking. That explanation is a bit simplistic maybe, but it gives you the idea. I think the difficulty is more to to with the LGPL than the GPL, since the LGPL is defined in terms of linking while the GPL is defined in terms of use. In an image based system you can't have linking, so you can't be LGPL compliant, and so you must be GPL compliant. There is actually something called the LLGPL, where the one of the 'L's stands for 'lisp', that deals with this situation. I *think* what Lothar is arguing is that using GCL is different than using GCC for commercial applications because of the fact that GCL is image based. This isn't necessarily true, it depends on how the runtime is licensed and designed since GCL compiles to native via GCC and so has a linking step hidden away in there -- but I'm too apathetic/unconcerned to look up the details. As usual, if you don't like the GPL don't use GPLed software. Simple. (Maybe a more interesting question is whether you are allowed to run non-GPL-compatibly licensed software with the GCL runtime at all?) I don't understand why Lothar says only the BSD license is safe for commercial use -- that is trivially not true since there are several commercially licensed CL implementations that are definitely not BSD licensed, nor is it necessarily true of open source implementations as there are dozens/hundreds of OSI approved licenses -- so I imagine he is just being a bit overly specific. His point is clear enough if you don't take it literally. I hope this makes some sense... I suppose I really shouldn't be posting this late. Cheers, Bob ---- Bob Hutchison -- blogs at Recursive Design Inc. --