Source code and test suites (was: Re: Closing this list (gplv3 at fsfeurope.org))

[Jeroen Dekkers]

At Wed, 18 Jan 2006 21:01:06 +0100,
Florian Weimer wrote:
> 
> * Werner Koch:
> 
> > Feel free to use this list for now.  If the traffic increases too much
> > to disturb otehr discussions we could think about moving the GPL topic
> > to somewhere else.
> 
> Okay.
> 
> The section on source code does not mention test suites.  Have they
> been considered at all?
> 
> For sufficiently complex software, a suite of regression tests is
> extremely helpful for making modifications.  However, in some areas,
> there is a strong interest in proprietary test suites (in the GCC
> context, for example).  Forced publication of test suites would unduly
> extend the scope of software copyright.  That's why I'm not sure if
> anything should be done about this.

Because you don't distribute (or propagate in GPLv3 terms) anything
when running a test suite on a program, I don't see how the GPL could
enforce anything about test suites.

Jeroen Dekkers