Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!sgi!bron@bronze.wpd.sgi.com From: bron@bronze.wpd.sgi.com (Bron Campbell Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: The GNU Public License Summary: Derived works Message-ID: <39487@sgi.SGI.COM> Date: 3 Aug 89 18:31:40 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <1469@l.cc.purdue.edu> Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 33 I lot of discussion has gone on about the GNU License. While the philosophical points are interesting, as near as I can see the practical problem is in fact a very narrow one. The debate centers around whether GNU can place restrictions on work that I produce using the GNU tools. And that centers around whether a work is considered a "derivative" of the GNU software. If you just avoid making a derivative work, then you should have no problem distributing it. So just what exactly is GNU claiming as a derivative work? My understanding is that they have admitted that object code compiled with the GNU compiler is not a derivative work. Similarly, something edited with GNU emacs is not. There seem to be only 2 things: (1) executables linked with the GNU run time library, and (2) Bison codes that incorporate the skeleton parser. As has been pointed out, (1) can be avoided by distributing unlinked object files. (2) is a bit harder to get around, but could be done be providing the Bison input grammar in source form, and objects of the procedures that the parser calls when it does a reduction. The user would then have to run the grammar through Bison, compile the output, and link all the object files. Alternately, one could just use a different parser generator (say, lalr from comp.source.unix). These restirctions are annoying, but really no more than that. While personally I'd rather that "Free Software" really be free, I have no problem with GNU doing whatever they like with their own work. And living within their restrictions until the enforceablity of the copyleft is decided doesn't really seem all that bad. -- Bron Campbell Nelson bron@sgi.com or possibly ..!ames!sgi!bron These statements are my own, not those of Silicon Graphics.