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Relicensing Notice: GPLv2 → MIT

This project was originally released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2). Effective with this commit, the project is relicensed under the MIT License (see LICENSE).

Authorization

The original copyright holder of UserLand Frontier(tm), UserLand Software, Inc., became defunct more than two decades ago. The remaining sole owner of the company at the time it was wound down authorized the current maintainer to use any license of their choice for this codebase. There are no remaining investors, partners, or other interested parties with rights in the code. Written authorization for the relicensing is retained by the current maintainer of this repository and is available for review on request by parties with a legitimate interest (e.g., downstream redistributors or legal counsel).

Scope

The relicensing applies to:

  • All first-party source code authored under the UserLand Frontier project (C, C++, Objective-C, headers, Rez, and Win32 resource files in Common/, frontier-cli/, portable/, tests/, tools/, and the related build inputs).
  • The license declaration in version-info strings emitted by the Windows build.
  • The top-level LICENSE file and historical docs/LICENSE.txt.

What was removed

  • The bundled MySQL client (Common/source/langmysql.c, Common/headers/langmysql.h, scripts/build_mysql_client.sh, docs/mysql_client_setup.md) was removed because the upstream MySQL client library is GPL-licensed and incompatible with the new MIT terms. The mysql.* verbs remain registered as headless stubs that return a script error indicating the feature is not implemented on this platform; existing UserTalk scripts that reference these verbs will receive a clean error rather than a "verb not found" failure.
  • LICENSES/GPL-2.0.txt was removed because no remaining bundled component requires GPLv2. The GPLv2 text is preserved for historical reference at LICENSES/GPL-2.0-historical.txt so downstream auditors can review the prior license terms without consulting external archives.

Third-party components

All other third-party components bundled with this project use MIT-compatible licenses (Apple Sample Code, PCRE, RSA-MD5, SSLeay/OpenSSL). See LICENSES/README.md for details and the corresponding license texts.

Preserved third-party attributions in first-party files

Two first-party files retain a non-UserLand copyright attribution alongside the MIT relicensing, in line with the principle that copyright notices are preserved while license terms are updated under appropriate authorization:

  • Common/source/langparser.c — generated by GNU Bison; FSF copyright (1984–2006) on the parser skeleton retained alongside the UserLand grammar/application copyright. Bison's special exception explicitly permits redistribution of generated parsers under any license.
  • Common/headers/langmath.h — header file created by Seth Dillingham of Macrobyte Resources in 2004. The original Macrobyte attribution is retained out of respect for the file's authorship. The substantive content of this file is an include guard and a placeholder comment; no Macrobyte source code is present, so the practical relicensing question is moot for the current file contents. If Macrobyte code is later restored to this file, the file's license header must be updated accordingly.

File-level markers

Every relicensed source file carries an SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT marker at the top, alongside the standard MIT permission notice. New code contributed to this project should follow the same pattern.