[fpc-pascal] Notice: Possible copyright infringements in FPC code base

[John Stoneham]

On Jan 16, 2008 2:42 PM, Michael Van Canneyt <michael at freepascal.org> wrote:
> The suspect routines are mostly in the classes unit.
> In the component streaming system, to be exact. This code is of course
> available in the GPL-ed CLX... Note also that the CLX is under some kind
> of dual license: GPL or the Borland license. Which license is used depends
> on the software engineer, if I understand correctly.

I took a look at Borland's license distributed with Kylix. That is one
bizarre creature. They go through all kinds of contortions to make it
"dual licensed". I don't think the GPL part qualifies as a GPL license
at all, actually. I think they felt backed into a corner by having to
use Qt on linux and had to include some kind of GPL license because of
that but at the same time wanted to keep as much control as they
could. Anyway, the "dual license" itself is kind of irrelevant since
each source file in the CLX contains it's own copyright notice and
specifically states "This file may be distributed and/or modified
under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 as
published by the Free Software Foundation". Even if Kylix contained a
more convoluted license in general, since each source file contains
that notice, the GPLv2 covers the source in each file that notice is
in.

Anyway, it's all a fairly moot point now (or soon will be).

> Regardless of this, we do not wish to be suspected of using Borland's
> code, and therefor decided to play it safe and recode the routines
> anyway. I cannot stress this enough.
>

I agree completely with this. As an attorney, I like to make arguments
and debate things and explore nooks and crannies. But I agree that it
is best to have completely "pure" code in FPC, so that no
Borland/CodeGear fanboy can make any claim, unfounded or not, about
FPC "stealing" from CodeGear.