[ydl-gen] gfortran under yellowdog

[Derick Centeno]

Buon Journo, Furio !

You may have been aware that because of the SCO lawsuit regarding it's
copyrights regarding Unix and it's claim that proprietary source it
owned was leaked or embedded into Linux nearly all the distributions of
Linux, including YDL took measures to insure (as a defensive measure)
that the GPL and other open source licenses are adhered to as the
distributions move forward in matching their various releases with
current versions of GPL.

Whether this strategy was necessary is academic, as the result has been
the stronger reliability of Linux remaining true to the open source GPL
and foundation established by the FSF.  Unfortunately, g95 is not one of
those projects which abide by those obligations.  I found an interesting
discussion on that point here:

http://coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/Fortran/comp.lang.fortran/2004-07/0215.html

As the SCO case has wandered through various legalities, some of which
were actually funny, the fundamentals and points raised by the suit
remain sound and briefly they are simply expressed with a corporation's
or inventor's right to hold and maintain rights to their product which
include both acknowledgment and payment for their effort.  In the US
there has always existed the added compensation of the ability to sue
for theft of said property, which by definition is use of said property
without compensation and recognition of ownership.

The European legal system or legal systems have varied on these points.
But anyone can understand the concern.

Regarding the various distributions of Linux the approach was to defend
themselves and their users from any concern or worry of being personally
sued or legally challenged.  Another legal difference is that an
individual in the US continuing to use property belonging to another
without permission or compensation or both (unless the owner waives
his/her right to collect compensation) can be not only sued, but charged
with theft which could lead to garnishment of one's wages and/or
imprisonment.   

I am unsure how far SCO or any company like SCO would go but the
approach taken by many distributions was not to wait for the law.
Instead, as best I understand, any US distribution and user abiding by
the GPL is in the clear or as we say in baseball - safe.  Due to
Europe's various legal systems I'm not sure how an individual exposes
himself or herself by using non-GPL projects or products which are not
explicitly defined by proprietary licenses.  I'm also not sure how the
GPL is interpreted or supported in Europe.

Personally, I understand how certain programmers can come to feel like
gourmet chefs or other high scale artists, which are guarded regarding
sharing certain recipes or business proceedings.  If this analogy
follows, the better solution is to establish an exclusively commercial
and proprietary recognized product or brand.  However such a commercial
approach must be distinct from the modern GPL system where all work is
identified and clear for any to review via standard and recognized
procedures.  

There are a variety of means where commercial entities can write their
own license which approaches some aspects of the GPL while also allowing
recognition of proprietary software which requires a different
protection, but again these are variants of the GPL which are recognized
under different names and categories for the purpose of allowing
commercial companies to protect themselves and yet contribute to the
traditional GPL user space.
A site which discusses this is greater detail is available here:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses

It's a great site for exploring the nuances of how open source and GPL
(and it's variants) exist within these different uses by commercial
entities, projects and others.

I hope that you don't mind that I took such a long time replying to your
query.

All the best...

On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 09:03 +0200, furio ercolessi wrote: 

> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 07:52:54PM +0000, Derick Centeno wrote:
> > I recall a discussion regarding gfortran sometime ago.  I'm sure it
> > can be installed by using yum.  The simplest way is probably:
> > 
> > #yum install "gfortran*"
> > 
> > You can make sure it's available by:
> > 
> > #yum info "gfortran*" or
> > 
> > #yum search "gfortran*"
> 
> The current package containing gfortran in YDL6 is 
> gcc-gfortran-4.1.1-52.ydl.1
> 
> I never attempted to compile gfortran from the sources.
> However I did compile g95 (which I prefer over gfortran for several
> reasons) from the sources, following the procedure described in
> http://www.g95.org/src.shtml , and there were no bad surprises.
> 
> furio
> 
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=================
Gitanjali 35:
Where the Mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where Knowledge is Free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic
walls;
Where words come from the Depth of Truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards Perfection;

Where the Clear Stream of Reason has not lost its way into the dreary
desert sand of dead habit;
Where the Mind is led forward by Thee in Ever-Widening Thought
AND Action --
Into That Heaven of Freedom, My Father, let my country awake.
by Rabindrath Tagore
Gitanjali (Song Offerings): A Collection of Prose Translations made by
the author from the original Bengali, introduction by W.B.Yeats,
Published: London: Macmillan, 1913


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