[Gcl-devel] Re: GCL compliance and Bill Schelter

[Sam Steingold]

> * In message <address@hidden>
> * On the subject of "Re: [Maxima] Re: GCL compliance and Bill Schelter"
> * Sent on 26 Jul 2003 00:16:50 +1200
> * Honorable Adam Warner <address@hidden> writes:
>
> On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 20:33, Nicolas Neuss wrote:
> > 
> > Hmm.  What about interfacing via CLOCC?  By this reasoning, CLOCC
> > has to be GPLed because it accesses internal symbols for CLISP.
> > What about programs using CLOCC then?
> 
> As CLISP's copyright states, to be an independent work a program must
> "only reference external symbols in CLISP's public packages (namely
> the packages COMMON-LISP, COMMON-LISP-USER, KEYWORD, EXT) ..."

the crucial part is the next phrase you omitted:

"i.e. if they don't rely on CLISP internals and would as well run in any
 other Common Lisp implementation."

the idea is that any application that does not _require_ CLISP to run
is _not_ infected by CLISP GPL.

CLOCC/PORT is, in fact, a cross-platform portability kit which runs
under CLISP, CMUCL, ACL, LW (and soon GCL - as soon as they fix 
DEFPACKAGE &c).  Therefore it is not covered by GNU GPL (but by GNU LGPL
with Franz clarification).  I.e., it does _not_ infect software that
uses CLOCC/PORT with GNU LGPL.

Another example: FFI is not mentioned in the list of "public packages".
This means that if you use CLISP FFI, you are under GNU GPL.
Suppose UFFI (Unified FFI which supports CMUCL, LW, ACL and probably
some others) is ported to CLISP FFI.
Then UFFI is not affected by CLISP GPL and programs that use CLISP FFI
via UFFI are not affected either.

>   #+clisp (sys::getenv (string var))
>            ^^^^^
> 
> This however is almost certainly an oversight. GETENV is also exported
> as part of the EXT package.

What's worse, VARIABLE-SPECIAL-P relies on SYS::SPECIAL-VARIABLE-P
which is not exported in CLISP - and probably won't be.

nevertheless, as explained above, since CLOCC/PORT runs under many CL
implementations and does not _require_ CLISP, it is _not_ infected by
CLISP GPL.

> I have CCed Sam Steingold so he can consider fixing this.

I read both maxima and gcl-devel on gmane, so I got to read your
message 3 times.  Thanks.

I BCCed this message to Bruno Haible who is the main authority on all
CLISP-related matters.
I do not CC him so that he will not get `subscribed' to this
discussion; if he wants to respond and/or read it, he will go to gmane.

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k
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