Re: Updates to etc/MORE.STUFF

[Stefan Monnier]

> > AFAIK, you can't distribute elisp code under a license more
> > restrictive than the GPL since it "links" to the GPL interpreter.
> The would mean that you can only distribute GPL elisp programs?

In theory, no, but in practice, that's pretty much the case.

> I don't think that is true.  How does this "linking" happen?  What if
> the elisp runs in XEmacs?  What if it runs via the common-lisp
> library Sam Steingold wrote?  What if it runs via the Guile library
> somebody else whose name I forgot wrote?  I cannot believe this is
> correct.

Very few elisp packages can be usefully run under anything else
than Emacs or XEmacs (and in both cases the code will link to GLP'd elisp
code, so it needs to be GLP'd as well).

> But to answer your question, the elisp program I refered to is
> described on the wiki
> (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/RefactoringBrowser) using
> the description from its homepage, I believe:
> 
>     xref is a refactoring browser for Emacs; a proprietary addon for C
>     and Java, a bit more powerful than Visual Stuff from Windows, it
>     also does refactoring as follows according to the web site: Method
>     (function) extraction; renaming of packages, classes, parameters,
>     variables, fields (structure records) and methods (functions);
>     insertion, deletion, shift and exchange of parameters; field and
>     method moving; pushing down and pulling up fields and methods;
>     encapsulate field; and more. Refactorings are safe with detection
>     of possible conflicts. (Sometimes referred to as X-ref.)
> 
>     * http://www.xref.sk/

IIRC, I contacted the Xref guy a "long" time ago and he did agree to
GPL the elisp code.  I haven't checked the license of the elisp code
in recent versions, tho.


        Stefan