Re: [4diac-dev] Licensing of 4diac projects

[Alois Zoitl <alois.zoitl@xxxxxx>]

Hi Jörg,

sorry for the late reply. See my view below. But please note I'm not a lawyer (i.e., legal declaimer ;-).

On Wed, 2020-06-17 at 11:51 +0200, Jörg Walter wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> We stubled over a small issue when publishing code (accompanying code
> for an ETFA'20 submission). A stock 4diac project will contain FBT files
> with EPL license, and probably all useful applications will use some of
> these FBs.
>
> There might be the view that an application is not a derived work in the
> sense of the EPL. But would this uphold in a court? After all, the
> application workspace incorporates the code.

First of all the application does not incorporates the code. It just uses it via the public interface of an FB. So in my opinion this is the safe use case
according to EPL and one reason we are providing the type library with the EPL.

EPL permits to distribute EPL licensed code in source or binary with non EPL code. So distributing as part of your system is fine.

Also you can move all provided Eclipse 4diac FBs in a dedicated directory to better separate your own FBs from the EPL FBs.

>
> Is there a way to easily share a project including any custom FBTs but
> excluding those shipped with 4diac IDE? That would make the situation
> much easier license-wise.

In the original design of 4diac IDE's project structure we had as idea that a 4diac project is self contained and has all the types needed incorporated. As with
all design decisions this has pros and cons. With the new project layout we are currently developing the situation is still the same. Nonetheless it would allow
for some new ways of library management. However I would like to first stabilize what we have before continuing on.

BR,
Alois

>
> Regars,