[antlr-interest] Why ANTLR is not GPL

Terence Parr parrt at cs.usfca.edu
Wed Sep 21 11:51:26 PDT 2005


On Sep 21, 2005, at 11:31 AM, Jose San Leandro wrote:
> At this point, I cannot end without asking Terence a question I'm  
> sure he has
> answered many times (sorry for that): Why isn't ANTLR GPLed?

Hi Jose,

Richard Stallman asked me the exact same question in 1995. ;)

It all comes down to the fact that I want people to be able to do  
anything they want with my software including selling it to others.   
I just don't care as long as I get credit (the currency of academics)  
and you don't blame me when it erases your harddrive and/or all life  
on this planet. :)

I don't want people to avoid using my work because they cannot extend  
it without giving it back to the community.  This would essentially  
means that businesses would be much less likely to use my software.   
I want the most leeway possible for people so that there is no excuse  
not to use ANTLR (unless of course it sucks) ;)

[no general discussion of merit of GPL etc.. please.  I have made my  
decision to use BSD for ANTLR v3 etc... and it's final]

Regards,
Ter
--
CS Professor & Grad Director, University of San Francisco
Creator, ANTLR Parser Generator, http://www.antlr.org
Cofounder, http://www.jguru.com



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