[erlang-questions] A PropEr announcement

[Dmitrii Dimandt]

> Damn, what a problem in GPL for a testing program?
> Guys just want to protect their investment, but want to make a free
> advertisement by offering their excelent product to community.
> If it would be MIT, they can see their work in commercial product
> without any profit for them.
> 
> There is absolutely no problem in using GPL software to test your
> products: just don't include it into distribution.
> 


This won't work for a lot of opensource projects. GPL is simply not compatible with anything. And since most opensource include tests, the issue of GPL creeping up the chain and contaminating code becomes relevant.

Since you distribute tests which link to both PropEr *and* your own code:
- tests themselves must be GPL, since they link to GPL code
- since tests are now GPL, they cannot link to GPL-incompatible code. Therefore your own code must now become GPL.

I wonder why EPL/MPL is not an option for PropEr?


> Tests are not part of PropEr, but if any of you is afraid of GPL
> virus, so don't include tests into your main repository: keep it
> separate.
> For example, I don't include test files for erlyvideo tests into
> repository, because I don't want accidential discussions with their
> potential copyright holders.
> 
> 
> Btw, about PropEr. It is so widely told, that it is a magic tool, that
> can remove all bugs in software, that I'm very interested to try it.
> I will try to find time for it and tell if it helped me with erlyvideo or not.

See Kostis Sagonas' presentation on PropEr on erlang-factory.com. It's much better with video, but video isn't there yet