Re: Fw: Licensing Agreements Question

Which part?

If you mean the part about being written in C, he's simply leaping to the
common assumption that everything's written in C because he doesn't know
any better. You have the source for SwiftForth, and folks who have
SwiftForth Pro even have the source for the underlying kernel and
metacompiler. There's no C in it.

Whether or not C is involved has no bearing on the license issues under
discussion, however.

If there's another issue that concerns you, let us know.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

At 09:14 PM 12/2/2001 -0800, you wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I wanted to share this email. Either I have been mislead by my research of
>FORTH or the Free Software Foundation does not know the origin of FORTH.
>
>Would someone please make a comment on the part that addresses Swiftforth?
>
>Thanks,
>Jodell
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Free Software Foundation" <licensing_at_gnu.org>
>To: <dolfina_at_dolfina.org>
>Cc: <licensing_at_gnu.org>
>Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 11:09 AM
>Subject: Re: Licensing Agreements Question
>
>
> >
> > Hello.
> > Please forgive our delay, but we both gnu_at_gnu.org and licensing_at_gnu.org
> > are under high pressure.
> >
> > > In a previous conversation, I had expressed concerns about using GPL
> > > for developing online courses for our Non-profit religious organization.
> > > At that time, our Board of Advisors had not chosen a language for
> > > software to be distributed. After careful analysis, we were advised by a
> > > programmer in another non-profit organization to research FORTH due the
> > > fact that we have planned to design from the perspective of a booting
> > > kernel. FORTH as a language fit our specifications.
> >
> > Ok.
> >
> > > However, after comparing the various FORTH distributions, we chose
> > > SwifthForth to start our projects so that our we could bring our project
> > > into the internet and know that our software would be easy to use for
> > > the majority of non-programmers in our membership.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I don't know that product.
> >
> > > Although, we did consider Gforth, we discovered that Gforth was
> > > written in C and we wanted a pure FORTH from the beginning.
> >
> > Most language interpreters and compilers are written in C. This
> > includes C, and I'm pretty sure it includes SwifthForth as well. You
> > just don't know that because you are only given the binary of the
> > interpreter. The fact that you get the source of Gforth doesn't change
> > anything on the technical level. Once you run the binary you can
> > ignore that its source is written in C.
> >
> > > In conversations with Elizabeth Rather of Forth Inc. on the
> > > comp.lang.forth we are allowed to use Swiftforth and use a GPL or
> > > Open Source License if we do not include the Swifthforth kernel and
> > > compiler as part of the software package offering. That is to say,
> > > we are welcome to release free software source code we develop with
> > > Swifthforth.
> >
> > Yes, that's pretty common, it's what happens every time someone
> > distributes Free Software that runs in non-free environments (like
> > ports of GNU software to Windows, or to non-free Unixen).
> >
> > > Our Board of Advisors would like to write a license agreement that
> > > would be GPL and Proprietary compliant when we are using code sources in
> > > respect to license agreements which we have made, such as with
> > > Swiftforth.
> >
> > I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean that you want to be
> > GPL-compatible while being able to link with specific non-free code
> > (i.e., code part of SwiftForth)?
> >
> > If I got it right, I'd suggest one of those. Either you use the GNU GPL
> > plain as simple, provided all the proprietary code you are interested in
> > can be qualified as operating environment for your software. This is
> > allowed by the standard GPL. As I already stated, it's why GPL code
> > can run under non-free OS's.
> >
> > From the GPL:
> >
> > However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
> > include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or
> > binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on)
> > of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
> > component itself accompanies the executable.
> >
> > Otherwise, if this doesn't fit your needs, you can use the "special
> > exception" clause, as described in
> >
> > http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html#TOCWritingFSWithNFLibs
> >
> > > In reviewing Free Software Foundation's GPL Compatible
> > > Licenses there had been a The Clarified Artistic License version of the
> > > Artistic License which is no longer available to peruse on the FSF
> > > website link. We are interested in writing a license that allows us to
> > > use Swiftforth, Colorforth by Chuck Moore, and other Forth Libraries
> > > that may be Public Domain or not PD.
> >
> > Please note that the difference is not public-domain or not, but
> > whether it is compatible with a specific license or not (in this case,
> > the GNU GPL).
> >
> > > Can we rewrite a license similar to the The Clarified Artistic
> > > License that is GPL Compatible and if so, does FSF have any copies of
> > > the The Clarified Artistic License that we can read and use for a
> > > template?
> >
> > Could you please reconsider using the plain GPL or GPL-with-exception
> > as suggested above? Currently I don't have a copy of the clarified
>artistic
> > license, but I can look for one if you really need it.
> >
> > Hope this helps
> > /alessandro
> > --
> > Alessandro Rubini,
> > Licensing Question Volunteer,
> > Free Software Foundation
>
>
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================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310-491-3356
5155 W. Rosecrans Ave. #1018 Fax: +1 310-978-9454
Los Angeles, CA 90250
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
================================================

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Received on Sun Dec 02 2001 - 22:09:22 PST