Re: [Chicken-users] Re: Integrating unit tests into source code

[Peter Busser]

Hi!

On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 05:12:40PM +0100, Peter Bex wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 05:59:23AM -0800, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> > 
> > I don't really understand this part.
> > 
> >    The   point  is,  you  can  use  LGPL  code  as  "starter  code,"  and
> >    incrementally  transform  it,  until  you  have  only  BSD  code.  The
> >    incrementality  is  important.   Some  licenses  will prevent you from
> >    doing that.
> 
> I didn't know that was allowed.  Also, I think the legal issues would be
> complicated.  Think USL vs. BSDi and the recent SCO vs. IBM.  Where does
> the code come from, and who is to know for sure?
> I wouldn't want to go anywhere near that.

Well, you put the LGPLed code in a separate source file. And you
reimplement it in yet another source file, while gradually deleting the
LGPLed functionality.

There is one catch though. The BSD licence allows people to make proprietary
changes to the code and does not mandate any code sharing with others.
When you mix BSD and LGPLed code, at least the LGPLed code must be
shared with others AND the binary must be distributed in such a way that
the LGPLed code can be changed, compiled, and relinked into a functional
binary.

I am quite sure SCO won't sue anyone over Chicken sources. ;-) If your
own code looks different enough and is structured different enough from
the original code, then it is very hard to prove that it was stolen. I
think that is the main reason why the FSF advices to make programs
different from their original examples.

Groetjes,
Peter.