I was wondering whether GCC guys will finally put GDC into the main GCC trunk? If they refuse to do so, what are the reasons, etc...
Last time we discussed this their response was that there is no final D specification, yet. Since there is one, now, I see no reasons not to include D (GDC) into the GCC tree.

Maybe we should make a small petition somewhere and ASK them to do that!?

What You think, guys?

Kind regards

Dejan Lekic wrote:
> I was wondering whether GCC guys will finally put GDC into the main GCC trunk? If they refuse to do so, what are the reasons, etc...
> Last time we discussed this their response was that there is no final D specification, yet. Since there is one, now, I see no reasons not to include D (GDC) into the GCC tree.
> 
> Maybe we should make a small petition somewhere and ASK them to do that!?
> 
> What You think, guys?
> 
> Kind regards
> 

From GCC's page on "Contributing to GCC":

"Before we can incorporate significant contributions, certain legal requirements must be met.

"The FSF prefers that a contributor files a copyright assignment for large contributions. See some documentation by the FSF for details and contact us (either via the gcc@gcc.gnu.org list or the GCC maintainer that is taking care of your contributions) to obtain the relevant forms. The most common forms are an assignment for a specific change, an assignment for all future changes, and an employer disclaimer, if an employer or school owns work created by the developer. It's a good idea to send assignments@gnu.org a copy of your request.

"If a contributor is reluctant to sign a copyright assignment for a change, a copyright disclaimer to put the change in the public domain is acceptable as well. The copyright disclaimer form is different than an employer disclaimer form. A copyright assignment is more convenient if a contributor plans to make several separate contributions.

"Small changes can be accepted without a copyright disclaimer or a copyright assignment on file."

http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html

The odds of Walter gifting his copyright on the DMD front-end code to the FSF are probably low.

-- 
Kirk McDonald
http://kirkmcdonald.blogspot.com
Pyd: Connecting D and Python
http://pyd.dsource.org

Dejan Lekic wrote:

> Last time we discussed this their response was that there is no final
> D specification, yet. Since there is one, now, I see no reasons not
> to include D (GDC) into the GCC tree.

Do you really want D 1.000 included with something ? Isn't it better
to be able to upgrade to the latest D version as posted on the site ?

As far as I know, DMD 1.00 had some pretty serious bugs when released.
But the main reason for it not being included is the one of copyright.
Since the DMD front-end will not be signed over to GCC, GDC is *not*
the GNU D Compiler but the GDC D Compiler. Still free under GPL, but.

Note that the D language specification is copyrighted to Digital Mars,
and is not released under any open license like the frontend code is...
Phobos still has some licensing issues remaining with particular files.
See http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?PhobosLicenseIssues for details.


I think the best would be for a language site with offical downloads,
like http://www.d-programming-language.org/ was meant before it died.
(i.e. something more like perl.org or python.org or ruby-lang.org ?)
D spec, and then feature links to both compilers and both libraries.

Fourth time's the charm, perhaps ? (opend.org, gnu-d.org, d-p-l.org)
Maybe even involve an web designer from the start, this time around. :-)
--anders

Anders, thanks for reply - not it makes more sense... I did not know some of the things you mentioned above. :)

> I think the best would be for a language site with offical downloads, like http://www.d-programming-language.org/ was meant before it died.

It is there solely for the purpose of search engines to index it... I remember Walter saying something like that somewhere on the newsgroups.

Anders F Björklund wrote:
> Dejan Lekic wrote:
> 
>> Last time we discussed this their response was that there is no final
>> D specification, yet. Since there is one, now, I see no reasons not
>> to include D (GDC) into the GCC tree.
> 
> Do you really want D 1.000 included with something ? Isn't it better
> to be able to upgrade to the latest D version as posted on the site ?
> 
> As far as I know, DMD 1.00 had some pretty serious bugs when released.
> But the main reason for it not being included is the one of copyright.
> Since the DMD front-end will not be signed over to GCC, GDC is *not*
> the GNU D Compiler but the GDC D Compiler. Still free under GPL, but.
> 
> Note that the D language specification is copyrighted to Digital Mars,
> and is not released under any open license like the frontend code is...
> Phobos still has some licensing issues remaining with particular files.
> See http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?PhobosLicenseIssues for details.
> 
> 
> I think the best would be for a language site with offical downloads,
> like http://www.d-programming-language.org/ was meant before it died.

What do you mean by "died"?

It's still there. No, it doesn't look like it's changed any recently ("Copyright © 2004-2006 by Digital MarsCopyright © 2004-2006 by Digital Mars"), but I don't know what Walter ever planned to do with this site. Maybe someone was going to help him add a wiki to it.

-- 
jcc7

Justin C Calvarese wrote:

>> I think the best would be for a language site with offical downloads,
>> like http://www.d-programming-language.org/ was meant before it died.
> 
> What do you mean by "died"?

"Stopped being updated".

Like http://www.opend.org/ ?

--anders