Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: GhostScript
Summary: You read the copyleft wrong
Message-ID: <428@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 89 12:00:25 GMT
References: <945.2514938A@busker.FIDONET.ORG> <11903@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <572@tah386.manhattan.ks.us>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 26

In article <572@tah386.manhattan.ks.us>, terry@tah386.manhattan.ks.us (Terry Hull) writes:

|  It falls under the GNU Public License which means you cannot sell it or 
|  any work derived from it.  

  No. Wrong. Richard Stallman clarified this at the World Science
Fiction convention. You certainly *may* sell GNU software, but you must
(a) make source available for three years, and (b) not restrict
redistribution of the program, free or for sale. The Free Software
Foundation sells GNU software, and anyone else can, too. He was *very*
explicit about this.

  If you use the gcc compiler and include their library routines in your
executable then your program falls under the copyleft, too. If you use
BISON and the FSF skeleton you have the same effect.

  I can't completely summarize the two hours RMS talked during his "30
minute presentation," but that's the important point. You are welcome to
sell all you want, but everybody else is free to give it away. Makes
any price beyond copying cost hard to get.

-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon