As usual, thanks to all,
I received answers from:
Gwen Pettigrew
Lucio Chiappetti
Peter Stern
Larye Parkins
Dr. Tom Blinn
and Robert Bumpus
It appears that it is quite legal but that there are a couple of issues to
watch out for.
The main problem mentioned is that the Fortran Runtime Libraries are not
installed automatically. They are available on the Associated Products
CD and there is no license required. However, even if the users have a
RTL installed, there is the problem of making sure it is the same (or a
later) version as the one used in the compilation. The suggestion was
to make sure all libraries are statically linked and then there should
be no problem.
Here is the quote from Dr. Tom Blinn addressing this:
If you build a static application (with all the libraries pre-linked)
then they don't need the Fortran 90 runtime. I would have to double
check that the F90 runtime licensing is the same as every OTHER of the
supporting runtimes have always been, but for every other version of
language support, the right to use the support runtimes comes with the
base OS, no separate license is required. I'd also have to check the
distribution for the F90 runtime libraries, they are probably on our
AP CD media with the other language runtimes, but there may have been
a time (in the past) when they were not, and you had to go get them
from some other media.
You do NOT need a Fortran compilation license to use the runtime lib
support, but you DO need a UNIX license to run on Tru64 UNIX. (From
a technical perspective, they may also allow you to run on Linux on
Alpha, I'd have to go digging into the Fortran group's documentation
to find out for sure.) That is, unless they are different from every
other runtime library for Tru64 UNIX on Alpha (and all the other ones
that the Fortran group ever did before).
The real challenge for your users, many of whom may be running older
versions of Tru64 UNIX, is getting the right runtime libraries onto
their systems if they're not already there, and making sure that the
stuff they are using is compatible with what you distribute. This
can be a real nightmare. Most people would probably develop their
stuff on V4.0D and that SHOULD work on all later releases and with
later versions of the F90 runtimes.
Another issue is the architecture. According to the man page, the
program should run correctly on every alpha processor no matter what
architecture switch is chosen, but may incur "emulation overhead"
in some cases.
At least one person indicated that they believe Sun has a similar license
structure, does anyone know any more about that?
Thank you all for your help...
Cyndi
--
-Cyndi Smith Programmer Analyst III, Biomathematics
-cyn_at_odin.mdacc.tmc.edu M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
-phone: (713) 794-4938 fax: (713) 792-4262
<http://odin.mdacc.tmc.edu/~cyn>
Received on Fri Sep 22 2000 - 17:39:13 NZST