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by Andrew_nenakhov 1906 days ago
> As such: LLVM fell under a BSD-style license

An extremely silly tall tale.

When we released our software under GNU GPL licenses, we didn't write rms to ask for his permission or blessing. We just did release it under the license we felt was best for our vision.

So if llvm was released under different license, this is fully on llvm author. They had reasons to release it under the license that fitted them best.
1 comments
spamizbad 1906 days ago
It's documented truth - from RMS himself:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00...

Chris Lattner's original email: https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html

> The patch I'm working on is GPL licensed and copyright will be assigned to the FSF under the standard Apple copyright assignment. Initially, I intend to link the LLVM libraries in from the existing LLVM distribution, mainly to simplify my work. This code is licensed under a BSD-like license [8], and LLVM itself will not initially be assigned to the FSF. If people are seriously in favor of LLVM being a long-term part of GCC, I personally believe that the LLVM community would agree to assign the copyright of LLVM itself to the FSF and we can work through these details.

If your view is LLVM's licensing is irrelevant to the free software movement then perhaps you don't understand free software as much as you think.

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Andrew_nenakhov 1906 days ago
> If your view is LLVM's licensing is irrelevant to the free software movement then perhaps you don't understand free software as much as you think.

Ah, I love the smell of the Straw Man argument in the morning. Please, don't do that in civilized discussions. I have never stated that LLVM is not Free Software.

Regarding the links you provided, it is irrelevant. If LLVM developers really had wanted to release the code under GNU GPL license, they would have done it. If they had wanted to transfer copyright to FSF, they would have done it. They didn't, and without a doubt they had more strong reasons than 'they didn't answer my email'.

I think that the use of the Apache license has more to do with Lattner's then employer, Apple. I can't recall any software by them ever released under GNU GPL license, and they are not known as friendly to GPL.

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