[MLton-user] Is mlton free software?

[Vesa Karvonen]

The following post by Stephen Weeks on comp.lang.functional, and
the resulting discussion, might be of interest:

  http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.functional/msg/117e90cee8e84e16

BTW, as someone using MLton in a commercial project, I think that
the BSD-style license, especially for the runtime, makes life simpler.

-Vesa Karvonen

On 5/15/07, Bartlomiej Szymczak <rhywek at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, all.
>
> I have found the following in list archive:
>
> >I am pleased to announce that, as of today, the MLton project is
> >officially available under a BSD-style license. For a copy of the
> >license, see
> >
> >http://mlton.org/License
> >
> >Finally, because we worked for so long under the GPL, it is possible
> >that some GPL'd code slipped into the project. We've done a careful
> >review and don't think there is any problem. But if there is, please
> >let us know and we will remove the offending code or get the
> >contributor's approval for the new license.
>
> I have read the license and it seems to me that it has a big flaw. If
> somebody wants to, they can just take MLton code, change it and
> distribute without the source code. They could even change the license
> to a different one. This way the software is non-free (using FSF's
> definition of freedom).
>
> Is my understanding correct? Is MLton non-free software?
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Bartlomiej Szymczak