On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 15:14:40 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>
> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!

That is really good news!
One less shackle preventing users from adopting :D (and if I am not mistaken, directly contributing to DMD)

I was just discussing it with Steve at our Boston D Meetup last week and he explained how it was "techincally" free, but needed your explicit blessing for each case—which was guaranteed. Strange how things work in this world many times—especially where software is involved.

--
Sameer

On Friday, April 07, 2017 08:14:40 Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>
> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!

Well, this is certainly great news.

Does this make dmd the only compiler that's fully boost-licensed? Usually, licenses like the GPL or BSD license get used. I don't get the impression that the boost license is all that common - at least not for actual programs as opposed to libraries. From what I've seen, the fact that we use it so heavily in the D community is abnormal, though it's as hassle-free as you can get with an open source license, which is great.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 19:37:14 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> From what I've seen, the fact that we use it so heavily in the D community is abnormal

AFAIK the reasons it was chosen were

1. It's as close to public domain as you can get in international law
2. It's on all of the "Accepted OSS Licenses" lists that major corps have because of Boost itself being used in those companies. If your license isn't on the list, your project isn't being used.

On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 15:14:40 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>
> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!

Very good news and a solid accomplishment for being on top of Hacker News (as of writing this). It's very good when dlang is discussed on the site along with the other trendy languages. It certainly deserves to be within common programming discourse.  Also, congratulations on this big accomplishment!

On Friday, April 07, 2017 20:02:52 Jack Stouffer via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 19:37:14 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > From what I've seen, the fact that we use it so heavily in the D community is abnormal
>
> AFAIK the reasons it was chosen were
>
> 1. It's as close to public domain as you can get in international
> law
> 2. It's on all of the "Accepted OSS Licenses" lists that major
> corps have because of Boost itself being used in those companies.
> If your license isn't on the list, your project isn't being used.

Oh, I'm quite familiar with why Walter chose the boost license, and I agree with that choice (I use it for all of my projects). My point was that it doesn't seem to be a very common choice outside of the D community (at least from what I've seen).

- Jonathan M Davis

On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 15:14:40 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>
> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!

This is brilliant! Fantastic!

With all those forks of dmd now well underway, can I please reserve the name 'dork'? ;)

On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 15:14:40 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>
> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!

I've been coding in D for years now but was unaware of this issue. Could someone give this licensing neophyte an explanation and some history?

Thanks.

On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 19:37:14 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Friday, April 07, 2017 08:14:40 Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>>
>> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!
>
> Well, this is certainly great news.
>
> Does this make dmd the only compiler that's fully boost-licensed? Usually, licenses like the GPL or BSD license get used. I don't get the impression that the boost license is all that common - at least not for actual programs as opposed to libraries. From what I've seen, the fact that we use it so heavily in the D community is abnormal, though it's as hassle-free as you can get with an open source license, which is great.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

I was thinking the same thing. Its probably the most permissive compiler out there now. MIT almost equal though.

Am Fri, 7 Apr 2017 08:14:40 -0700
schrieb Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com>:

> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
> 
> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!

Great news! Maybe someone could notify http://phoronix.com . They've blogged about D before and reach quite some linux users and developers.


-- Johannes

On 07/04/2017 10:03 PM, WhatMeWorry wrote:
> On Friday, 7 April 2017 at 15:14:40 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6680
>>
>> Yes, this is for real! Symantec has given their permission to
>> relicense it. Thank you, Symantec!
>
> I've been coding in D for years now but was unaware of this issue. Could
> someone give this licensing neophyte an explanation and some history?

So dmd's backend came directly from dmc. This makes sense as this is the time of Digital Mars creation (Walter has been working with this code base pretty much since before I was born).
Because of how history went, it was owned by Symantic yet Digital Mars still developed it.

So its usage within dmd caused problems, i.e. with packaging and distributing because it required explicit permission from Digital Mars so that Symantic wouldn't get sued.

Maybe Walter can clarify but this is what I have gathered over the years.