Public domain POSIX make

#1

Post by donmcc » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 12:32 AM UTC

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#2

Post by bragr » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

>This version is also dedicated to the public domain

IANAL but under US copyright law this is a meaningless statement as it's not possible to disclaim ownership. You can only permissively license - though reading the LICENSE file, this is what they are doing in practice.

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#3

Post by naniwaduni » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

bragr wrote: post #2

>This version is also dedicated to the public domain IANAL but under US copyright law this is a meaningless statement as it's not possible to disclaim ownership. You can only permissively license - though reading the LICENSE file, this is what they are doing in practice.

I'm not sure I'd like to meet the court that wouldn't see a public domain dedication and round it up to a maximally permissive license if it ever came up anyway.

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#4

Post by dwheeler » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

Sadly, the POSIX specification for "make" is notoriously limited. They only spec'ed what everyone could agree on, and that wasn't much. I'm sure there are cases where a make that only implements the POSIX spec is fine.. and if this is useful, great!! However, many projects that use "make" will outgrow it. I think many people just assume GNU make when they use a make; GNU make has lots of additional capabilities that turn out to be useful, and it runs practically everywhere.

Your mileage may vary.

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#5

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 3:47 AM UTC

bragr wrote: post #2

>This version is also dedicated to the public domain IANAL but under US copyright law this is a meaningless statement as it's not possible to disclaim ownership. You can only permissively license - though reading the LICENSE file, this is what they are doing in practice.

I thought that was a problem for other countries? In the US I’m pretty sure dedicating something to the public domain actually places it there.

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#6

Post by ori_b » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 4:11 AM UTC

dwheeler wrote: post #4

Sadly, the POSIX specification for "make" is notoriously limited. They only spec'ed what everyone could agree on, and that wasn't much. I'm sure there are cases where a make that only implements the POSIX spec is fine.. and if this is useful, great!! However, many projects that use "make" will outgrow it. I think many people just assume GNU make when they use a make; GNU make has lots of additional capabilities that…

> Extensions from a future POSIX standard have been added. Note that these are subject to change until the standard is finally published.

The extensions listed cover most of what I'm currently missing from posix make.

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#7

Post by cchcxsvvb » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 4:46 AM UTC

bragr wrote: post #2

>This version is also dedicated to the public domain IANAL but under US copyright law this is a meaningless statement as it's not possible to disclaim ownership. You can only permissively license - though reading the LICENSE file, this is what they are doing in practice.

No post body was provided.

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#8

Post by t-3 » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

bragr wrote: post #2

>This version is also dedicated to the public domain IANAL but under US copyright law this is a meaningless statement as it's not possible to disclaim ownership. You can only permissively license - though reading the LICENSE file, this is what they are doing in practice.

Considering that this is source-available software used for building other software, license is near meaningless anyway. Who distributes their build toolchain?

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#9

Post by CorrectHorseBat » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:06 AM UTC

bragr wrote: post #2

>This version is also dedicated to the public domain IANAL but under US copyright law this is a meaningless statement as it's not possible to disclaim ownership. You can only permissively license - though reading the LICENSE file, this is what they are doing in practice.

Afaik it's Germany (and maybe some othes) where that is an issue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#cite_ref-CC0_5...

Re: Public domain POSIX make

#10

Post by hvdijk » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:08 AM UTC

dwheeler wrote: post #4

Sadly, the POSIX specification for "make" is notoriously limited. They only spec'ed what everyone could agree on, and that wasn't much. I'm sure there are cases where a make that only implements the POSIX spec is fine.. and if this is useful, great!! However, many projects that use "make" will outgrow it. I think many people just assume GNU make when they use a make; GNU make has lots of additional capabilities that…

Even for those that do not assume GNU make, this may not be enough. GNU Autotools are not limited to running on GNU make, but this make does not implement everything used by Autotools. The first thing I noticed it does not handle is VPATH (https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/General-S...) which is used by Autotools for out-of-tree builds (mkdir build && cd build && ../configure && make as opposed to ./configure && make).