Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!usc!bbn!drilex!dricejb
From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: g++ vs. cfront 2.0 in the Real World
Message-ID: <2903@drilex.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jul 89 14:27:42 GMT
References: <799@redsox.bsw.com> <6590190@hplsla.HP.COM> <1561@bacchus.dec.com>
Reply-To: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
Lines: 41

In article <1561@bacchus.dec.com> bothner@decwrl.dec.com (Per Bothner) writes:
>In article <6590190@hplsla.HP.COM> jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock) writes:
>>>As with GCC, you can use the G++ *compiler* to compiler your code
>>>into binary, without having to release the source code.
>>I've heard this before, but I've yet to see Stallman verify this in black and
>>white terms.
>
>Stallman has verified this till (I assume) he is sick of it:
>Copyleft does not (and cannot) restrict the use of gcc (or emacs) as *tools*.
>That is, if you compile your program with gcc (or g++), it is still
>your program, as long as you only use "essential" run-time support,
>such as crt0, 32-bit multiplication on 16-bit machines, etc.
>However, if you link in libg++, Copyleft applies, and you must
>distrubute source to your entire application. The same will
>apply to the (unreleased) libgcc.

I assume that this means that Bison cannot be used in conventional, "software
hoarding" applications, until somebody re-invents the parser prototype
and makes it truly "free"?

>There may be a fine line between these cases, but it should be a
>trivial exercise to stay on the paranoid side of the line.

Paranoia comes in degrees; when many lawyers see something like copyleft,
they blanch.  Only the inoculated will look at it more closely.

It's considerations like this which will continue to limit the utility
of GNU stuff: it's all right for personal things, and even for tools, but
as soon as you want to include libg*, or Bison prototypes, or something
like that, you have to re-implement.

The same thing goes for other software, such as network packet drivers,
which get copylefted.  That's fine, but if you want to make something
a minor part of a major product (which you wish to "hoard"), your lawyers
will probably prevent you from using it.  ("Just in case")

I've heard of lawyers not even wanting files to be edited with GNU Emacs,
"just in case".
-- 
Craig Jackson
{bbn,ll-xn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}