[antlr-interest] Re: ANTLR Rights and Open Source issues

[aliguori123]

I am relatively new to ANTLR, but I have spoken with the GNU people
about compiler licensing before and have had to deal with bringing
open source products into a corporate world (unfortunately).

ANTLR seems to me to fall under the same situation as Bison which is
considered to be a compiler.  As a compiler, there are really two
separate licensing issues to consider, the runtime library and the
actual code generator.  The generated code will always be covered
under whatever license the .g file is licensed under so that is not
really an issue.

If there is no concern about the run-time library being modified and
released under a closed license, then I would recommend the BSD
license.  One thing to be wary of though, is that a special clause may
be needed as C++ libraries atleast are notoriously for being hard to
license if they contain either templates or a large number of inline
functions.

The license of the actual code generator really doesn't matter.  I
would recommend the GNU GPL but the BSD is fine if you don't care
about people reusing the code.

I actually would recommend atleast considering the GPL for the code
generator and the LGPL for the runtime library.  This is how GCC
licenses itself and only ensures that someone doesn't release a closed
version of ANTLR.

I will offer some general advice for getting a tool like this approved
in a corporation though as I have had experience with this :)  Just
use GCC as an example.  GCC is very familiar to most shops and is used
by lots of them too.  The best way to get something approved is to
piggy back on something else :)  They are essential the same types of
tools.

IMHO, public domain with a special rights clause would be harder to
get approved in a corporate environment than an established license
such as the GPL.  In fact, one would probably have an easier time
getting the GPL approved over the BSD license since the GPL is much
more widely used.

Regards,
Anthony Liguori

--- In antlr-interest at y..., "lgcraymer" <lgc at m...> wrote:
> I've finished my tree grammar generator extension to ANTLR and Ter
> and I have been talking about getting that and the tree rewrite 
> support into a 2.8 release, possibly along with a code 
> generator-generator module that Ter has been thinking about.  I'll
> say more about this in a separate message.
> 
> The problem that Ter and I are grappling with at the moment is the 
> release conditions.  JPL has a fairly liberal Open Source policy,
but 
> will not release into the public domain (no legal protection against 
> liability claims, and no desire to waive copyright protection).
Ter's 
> view, which I tend to agree with, is that Open Source should be
"open 
> source" and usable without restriction (except possibly to give
> proper credit to developers) in commercial products.  Thus the
"ANTLR
> Rights" manifesto to be found on the antlr.org site.
> 
> Ter is willing to put ANTLR under Open Source license, provided that
> 1.)  it doesn't add to the hassles of distributing ANTLR, and
> 2.)  it doesn't compromise the intent of the "Rights" declaration.
> 
> The GNU licenses do not support the intent of the "Rights" 
> declaration.  Can anyone point us to a good alternative license
which 
> preserves the "Rights" intent?  Also, does anyone else have comments 
> on the general release policy?
> 
> Help!
> 
> --Loring


 

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