Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!ctrsol!uakari!ark1!dsill From: dsill@ark1.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license. (Re: increasing yacc states) Message-ID: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> Date: 17 Jul 89 21:12:13 GMT References: <5035@ficc.uu.net> Reply-To: dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill) Organization: Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA Lines: 37 In article <5035@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >Most laudable. But here's the problem: > >Section 2b: > >$ 2. You may modify your copy or copies of GNU CC or any portion of it, >$ and copy and distribute such modifications under the terms of >$ Paragraph 1 above, provided that you also do the following: >... >$ b) cause the whole of any work that you distribute or publish, >$ that in whole or in part contains or is a derivative of GNU CC or >$ any part thereof, to be licensed at no charge to all third >$ parties on terms identical to those contained in this License >$ Agreement (except that you may choose to grant more extensive >$ warranty protection to some or all third parties, at your option). > >This paragraph is what I'm asking about. I believe that this effectively >prevents you from making any use, in however small a part, of any run-time >library for BISON, GCC, etc... First, being required to freely distribute code does not exactly prevent you from using the compiler. Second, a program compiled by GCC is not a derivative of GCC. It's certainly not a "modified copy or copies of GNU CC". >If the GCC compiler contains any literal code sequences, however small, >that enter the generated object file then it can be argued that you are >creating a derived work. How small a code sequence this involves is subject >to debate, but given past legal decisions I would hesitate to use something >as small as "JMP CRET". Lawyers (and judges, who are by and large lawyers) >are notorious for obscure blindnesses. Stallman and the FSF have better things to do than sue people who try to use their products. Get real, we're not talking about Apple or Microsoft here. They don't even *have* a legal department. -- Dave Sill (dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil)