[Haskell-cafe] Re: Thinking about what's missing in our library coverage

[Tom Tobin]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Colin Paul
Adams<colin at colina.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Tobin <korpios at korpios.com> writes:
>
>    >> This can surely be tackled by cabal, as it already has the
>    >> license information.
>
>    Tom> I don't see this as a real solution; why would a package be
>
> It should be done anyway, irrespective of the platform.

Yes, that would be handy option for cabal-install in general.


>    Tom> added to the platform in the first place if a large
>    Tom> proportion of developers couldn't make use of it?
>
> Anyone can make use of it. You may choose not to (or your boss may
> choose for you), but that doesn't mean you can't.

The benefit of a standard library is that you can say "I need a
library to handle X" and if a library addressing X is in the standard
library, you're set.  If you then need to worry about the GPL — and
this is a reality that can't be written off as a mere "choice" — why
bother with the platform in the first place?  Non-GPL developers would
be better off sticking with hackage in that case.