Re: [Caml-list] License Conditions for OCaml

[Xavier Leroy <xavier.leroy@inria.fr>]

> There have been whispers here and there that the OCaml
> regular expression code contains code taken from a LGPLed regex library,
> whose copyright is owned by the Free Software Foundation.

Yes, the "Str" library of OCaml is built on top of the "regexp"
library, which is owned by the FSF and distributed under the GPL.

> THEY definitely are not going to agree with any sort of change away from the
> (L)GPL, and will not look kindly on any violation.

Sure.  When we're talking about changing the OCaml licensing terms, it
really means changing the licensing terms of the code for which we are
the copyright owners.  (The LICENSE file in the OCaml distribution is
carefully worded to cover only the source files that are copyright INRIA.)

Fortunately, all of the OCaml code is copyright INRIA except this
lousy "regexp" library, which no-one is forced to use (the remainder
of the OCaml system doesn't depend on it), and which we'll replace
eventually by something more efficient.

> And even if you owned all the code and decided to change its license,
> especially to something less liberal than the GPL, people who don't like
> it can just take your old GPLed version and use THAT instead and hack on
> THAT instead.  Like what happened with Sistina and GFS.

We're talking about making the OCaml license *more* liberal, by
*removing* silly requirements of the LGPL.  I don't see users
objecting to this.

- Xavier Leroy
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