[aspectc-user] License for AspectC?

[Olaf Spinczyk]

Hi Robert,

On Monday, 10. June 2002 13:24, you wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I did not find any hints on the license which covers your AspectC
> stuff; can anybody point me to the license?
>
> Robert

thank you for bringing up this difficult topic. We have discussed the license 
issue several times, but no one took the time to make a license for AspectC++ 
yet. Our intention is to make a free binary code license, which allows users 
to generate any kind of code with AspectC++, even in commercial projects. If 
you have a good template, I would be happy about help.

At the moment such license is still missing. As far as I know this means that 
the default regulations of the coutry of the owner of the product must be 
applied. The owner am I, because AspectC++ was developed as a part of my PhD 
thesis and the coutry is germany. Daniel told me that the regulations in the 
german BGB mean that AspectC++ is an intellectual property of the author and 
nobody else is allowed to do anything with it without the author's permission.

We made only one statement that describes what is permitted (from the 
aspectc.org homepage):

"A first prototype of the implementation is available for download from our 
download page. But be warned. The project is first of all a research project 
and not intended to be used for serious software development. Nevertheless we 
will allow others to use it on their own risk. Support can not be promised 
but we will try to help in case of problems and are open for comments."

If you want to do anything else with AspectC++ than generating any kind of 
code with it or are not sure, simply ask for permission.

Please remember that there is no warranty, you use it at your own risk!

I hope that I am not wrong with the interpretation of the german law. It is, 
of course, better to have a license, which explicitly defines the rights of 
licensees. We will therefore make a license in the spirit of the statements 
above as soon as possible.

Let's be realisitic. I am not only a developer but also a user of AspectC++. 
There are still a lot of problems with the parser like seg-faults or endless 
loops even when it processes syntactically correct C++ code, the AspectC++ 
language semantics is still not properly defined, and the published papers 
are not what I would call a documention. Thus, my impression is that nobody 
can use AspectC++ in its current state without the risk of unexpected delays 
in the development and you will hardly be able to make money with AspectC++ 
(tell me if I'm wrong!). I am therefore not very much concerned about things 
that can be done with our freely downloadable version.

Olaf