RE: Using GNU Make with LSF

[Nestor Amaya]

Hi Paul,

LSF's make tool is licensed under "FlexLM". This means that it is
node-locked, so we have to pay for every machine that it runs on (+30 in our
case). Furthermore, they have not provided us with the source code (although
we have not yet requested it).

Perhaps you can point me to the GPL, and I can have a look to see if they
are in violation of it. If so, what should I do next? I don't want to see
LSF profit from the work of people like you.

Thank you,

Nestor

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul D. Smith [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 12:40 PM
To: Nestor Amaya
Cc: 'Help-Make (E-mail)'
Subject: Re: Using GNU Make with LSF


%% Nestor Amaya <address@hidden> writes:

  na> I have two questions: For one, I am surprised that Platform
  na> Computing can charge money for a program that is obviously built
  na> on top of the FSF's code: GNU Make 3.77 to be exact. For another,
  na> I have to believe that there is a way to make this work without
  na> having to purchase lsmake.

They are allowed to charge as much as they like, _but_ if you buy the
tool from them they must provide you with the complete source code to
GNU make plus any changes that they make to the program, and all such
code must be under the GPL (that is, they can't keep you from posting it
on your website or a newsgroup or giving it away to anyone (under the
terms of the GPL of course)).

Second, GNU make must know when the subprocess is completed.  If it
exits without waiting for the result, and you can't change that, then
you'll need to write a remote stub for it which knows how to retrieve
the results of the job and can find out when it's done.  Look at the way
the customs support is done for pmake in the GNU make sources.

-- 
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