On 6/19/2014 12:59 PM, Joakim wrote:
> Admittedly his concerns are unclear, but his problem is with the backend, not
> the frontend, which he already said he likes better now that it's
> boost-licensed.  He claims that the proprietary backend scares potential
> contributors away and that it should be "split up" from the frontend, by which
> he might mean putting it in a separate git repo?
>
> I don't know enough about these copyright tainting concerns to say if it's a
> good idea, just pointing out that he was talking about the backend, not the
> frontend.

Ok, but I'll also point out that LDC and GDC are fully free & open source.

On Friday, 20 June 2014 at 00:15:36 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 6/19/2014 12:59 PM, Joakim wrote:
>> I don't know enough about these copyright tainting concerns to say if it's a
>> good idea, just pointing out that he was talking about the backend, not the
>> frontend.
>
> Ok, but I'll also point out that LDC and GDC are fully free & open source.

Which wouldn't really help Artur (whether his concerns are justified or not), as we usually tell people to contribute their frontend patches directly to the upstream DMD repository.

David

On 06/20/14 13:51, David Nadlinger via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Friday, 20 June 2014 at 00:15:36 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 6/19/2014 12:59 PM, Joakim wrote:
>>> I don't know enough about these copyright tainting concerns to say if it's a good idea, just pointing out that he was talking about the backend, not the frontend.
>>
>> Ok, but I'll also point out that LDC and GDC are fully free & open source.
> 
> Which wouldn't really help Artur (whether his concerns are justified or not), as we usually tell people to contribute their frontend patches directly to the upstream DMD repository.

Yes. Also, like I've already said, working on top of a downstream tree would eventually either result in a fork, or fail, with the latter being the much more likely result.

I'll just add that I now think I've overstated the gains that splitting
out the free frontend would bring. That's because I've since realized
how hard it would still be to deal with development on top of git head,
when one can not immediately test the result /on real code/ (ie using a
non-dmd backend).
Without a truly shared frontend, there's no good solution, I guess. :(

artur

On 6/20/2014 5:13 AM, Artur Skawina via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 06/20/14 13:51, David Nadlinger via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> Which wouldn't really help Artur (whether his concerns are justified or
>> not), as we usually tell people to contribute their frontend patches
>> directly to the upstream DMD repository.
>
> Yes. Also, like I've already said, working on top of a downstream tree would
> eventually either result in a fork, or fail, with the latter being the much
> more likely result.
>
> I'll just add that I now think I've overstated the gains that splitting out
> the free frontend would bring. That's because I've since realized how hard it
> would still be to deal with development on top of git head, when one can not
> immediately test the result /on real code/ (ie using a non-dmd backend).
> Without a truly shared frontend, there's no good solution, I guess. :(

Just install dmd on your machine and contribute to the front end that way. Just because the back end is not what you want, it isn't going to corrupt your free open source contributions in the slightest, and those changes will make their way into LDC and GDC.

Or you can contribute to the repositories for GDC and LDC directly, and then issue PR's for them into the main front end github.

On Thursday, 19 June 2014 at 11:12:46 UTC, Artur Skawina via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> Wait what? Do you know a single person who decided to not work on DMD FE because of kind of formally (but not practically) non-free backend?
>
> Well, do you think I would have said what I did if this issue didn't
> affect /me/? [1]
>
> ...
>
> And, yes, some people really always check licenses, even before fully
> determining what a software project actually is/does. Because if the
> license is problematic then everything else is irrelevant -- the project
> simply is unusable, and any time spent looking at it would be wasted.
>
> That is fortunately not a problem for dmdfe, as boost/gpl should be
> ok for (almost) everyone. But the cost of having to deal with another
> license, for a bundled part, that you're never going to use and are not
> even interested in, is there. The cost of scratching-an-itch also
> becomes higher. Depending on person/context, these costs can be
> prohibitive.
>
> artur

I still don't understand. What impact backend license has on you? In other words, what is potential danger you need to be concerned about that makes potential contributions too risky? One problem I am aware of is redistribution issue which is common blocker with getting into linux distributions. But personal contributions? Can you explain it in a bit more details?

On 06/20/14 23:28, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Thursday, 19 June 2014 at 11:12:46 UTC, Artur Skawina via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> That is fortunately not a problem for dmdfe, as boost/gpl should be
>> ok for (almost) everyone. But the cost of having to deal with another
>> license, for a bundled part, that you're never going to use and are not
>> even interested in, is there. The cost of scratching-an-itch also
>> becomes higher. Depending on person/context, these costs can be
>> prohibitive.

> I still don't understand. What impact backend license has on you?

Let's not make this about me - while this issue has been (one of) the
reason(s) why I have never even looked at DMD in all the years, I have
never mentioned it. At least not until somebody suggested that the
problem is not a real one. :)
It's just /one/ of the issues leading to the very low amount of
contributions; eliminating this one wouldn't drastically change the
situation, it would be just a small step in the right direction.

> In other words, what is potential danger you need to be concerned about that makes potential contributions too risky? One problem I am aware of is redistribution issue which is common blocker with getting into linux distributions. But personal contributions? Can you explain it in a bit more details?

It's not about being able to contribute to DMD, it is about being able to work on /other/ projects. If contributing to DMD carries the risk of affecting the latter then it's simply best to avoid it; it's not a risk worth taking, just for a few small improvements. Significant work often starts with simple and trivial fixes; if scratching-an-itch is too costly then major contributions suffer too. Note that whether the risk is significant, or even real, doesn't really matter much -- it's the cost of making the decision that matters. Just-submit-a-small-patch-to-a-boost- -licensed-project turns into investigate-the-licensing-and-evaluate-all- -the-potential-legal-implications. It's enough to discourage submissions *even in the cases where there is no problem*.

artur

On Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 10:49:57 UTC, Artur Skawina via
Digitalmars-d wrote:
>
> It's not about being able to contribute to DMD, it is about being able
> to work on /other/ projects. If contributing to DMD carries the risk of
> affecting the latter then it's simply best to avoid it; it's not a risk
> worth taking, just for a few small improvements. Significant work often
> starts with simple and trivial fixes; if scratching-an-itch is too costly
> then major contributions suffer too. Note that whether the risk is
> significant, or even real, doesn't really matter much -- it's the cost of
> making the decision that matters. Just-submit-a-small-patch-to-a-boost-
> -licensed-project turns into investigate-the-licensing-and-evaluate-all-
> -the-potential-legal-implications. It's enough to discourage submissions
> *even in the cases where there is no problem*.
>
> artur

I really don't see what the issue is. If the projects are
unrelated, there is no  reason there could be a "contamination".

And even with that, nothing prevents you from working on the
front end with LDC or GDC.

On 22 June 2014 08:21, SomeDude via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 10:49:57 UTC, Artur Skawina via
>
> Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>
>>
>> It's not about being able to contribute to DMD, it is about being able to work on /other/ projects. If contributing to DMD carries the risk of affecting the latter then it's simply best to avoid it; it's not a risk worth taking, just for a few small improvements. Significant work often starts with simple and trivial fixes; if scratching-an-itch is too costly then major contributions suffer too. Note that whether the risk is significant, or even real, doesn't really matter much -- it's the cost of making the decision that matters. Just-submit-a-small-patch-to-a-boost- -licensed-project turns into investigate-the-licensing-and-evaluate-all- -the-potential-legal-implications. It's enough to discourage submissions *even in the cases where there is no problem*.
>>
>> artur
>
>
> I really don't see what the issue is. If the projects are unrelated, there is no  reason there could be a "contamination".
>
> And even with that, nothing prevents you from working on the front end with LDC or GDC.


And if your reasoning for not working on the front-end for GDC or LDC is that they are behind current development.  Then why don't you make your first contribution as updating the chosen compiler to be aligned with DMD development!

This is on the projects page for GDC at least, and soemwhere hidden on my long TODO list, but there are too many other important things to look after for the time being.  :)

Regards
Iain.

On 06/22/14 09:48, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> And if your reasoning for not working on the front-end for GDC or LDC is that they are behind current development.  Then why don't you make your first contribution as updating the chosen compiler to be aligned with DMD development!

1) It's not really about me. As long as the issue affected me, I have never said anything - I'm only mentioning it now, when it's no longer relevant (to me), because it's a problem for D. It was implicitly suggested that the issue isn't real or relevant; it was better to explain it using my example than to argue hypothetically.

2) I'm not even sure what you're suggesting. Dealing with DMD code is exactly the problem here.

I guess I won't be able to explain the issue any better...


> This is on the projects page for GDC at least, and soemwhere hidden on my long TODO list, but there are too many other important things to look after for the time being.  :)

Any chance of some kind of progress on the inlining front in the near future?

artur

On Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 10:49:57 UTC, Artur Skawina via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> In other words, what is potential danger you need to be concerned about that makes potential contributions too risky? One problem I am aware of is redistribution issue which is common blocker with getting into linux distributions. But personal contributions? Can you explain it in a bit more details?
>
> It's not about being able to contribute to DMD, it is about being able
> to work on /other/ projects.

This is exactly what I don't understand. How does DMD license affect work with any other projects? You are passing copyright to DigitalMars for all contributions anyway, Boost or proprietary. What is potential danger to be aware of? I think I am simply not that educated in legal matters on this topic.