I have a question about open source licences. Suppose an open-source
Forth program generates C source code. Is that source code covered
under the same license as the code generator?

If the end user uses this open-source code generator to make source
code and doesn't want to give up rights to the generated code (trade
secret, for example), what would be the best license for the code
generator?

Brad

Brad Eckert tinyboot.com> writes:

The first question is if the copyright holder of the code generator
has any copyright over the generated code at all, i.e., whether what
the code generator contributes is significant wrt copyright.

Typically code generators generate two pieces of code: some
boilerplate that they generate for all programs, and that would be
copyrighted by the copyright holder of the code generator; and some
code that is a relatively simple transformation of the user's input,
so that would be copyrighted by the user, and possibly, if the
contribution of the code generator is significant (usually it isn't),
by the code generator's copyright holder.

So, under normal conditions only the boilerplate code plays a role for
your question, and it will be under the specific license that the
copyright holder of the generator gave it.

On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, Brad Eckert wrote:

On Nov 1, 12:19 pm, s...@controlq.com wrote:

The code generator could include a user-defined boilerplate generator
that puts generated code under GPL, "Company XYZ proprietary" or
whatever.

Libraries in Forth are often "compile time", not "run time". For
purposes of LGPL, does this make a difference? Open Forth source
compiled to a user's C application AFAIK is just another way of
linking to the library. I'm leaning toward LGPL, with some
clarification.

Brad

On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, Brad Eckert wrote:

Thus, whatever your tool license, you allow the user to decide. Very
democratic.

On Nov 1, 8:30 pm, s...@controlq.com wrote:

Brad Eckert tinyboot.com> writes:

If you are happy with "whatever", just put that code into the public
domain. Anyone who picks it up and combines it with their own code
will put the whole under their favourite license (i.e., "whatever").

On Nov 3, 11:29 am, an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
wrote:

The system in question consists of:

(a) A Forth compiler
(b) A code generator
(c) Forth libraries in source form
(d) The user's Forth application
(e) The application as C source code

(a) uses (b) to compile (c) and (d) into (e).

Brad Eckert tinyboot.com> writes:

The question is: What happens if somebody takes the source code,
modifies it, and distributes the binary. Is it ok with you if they
don't make the changes available under the same conditions you put on
your code? If so, you can go with public domain or a BSD-style
license. If not, you want a copyleft (aka share-alike) license like
the GPL.

On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Brad Eckert wrote:

Hmmm! Intriguing. I can't wait for your project announcement 8-).