Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!umd5!purdue!gatech!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!wesommer From: wesommer@athena.mit.edu (William E. Sommerfeld) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: GNU C++ for toolkits Message-ID: <2479@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 23 Jan 88 15:19:44 GMT References: <802@rlgvax.UUCP> Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: wesommer@athena.mit.edu (William E. Sommerfeld) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 19 In article <802@rlgvax.UUCP> golds@rlgvax.UUCP (Rich Goldschmidt) writes: >Although it is free, GNU is not public domain. Their license contains some >significant restrictions, which makes it unusable for a commercial product. >While some might not consider this a problem, it will certainly prevent it >from becoming a standard. This suggests it is not a good choice as a basis >for Xtk. Wrong. The license for GNU CC (and GNU C++) states only that you are compelled to distribute source to the compiler, or an offer to distribute source to the compiler in exchange for a distribution fee; it does not say that anything compiled with it must be covered by those terms, and GCC doesn't put a GNU `copyleft' into its output. Also, the bizarre licensing `restrictions' on GNU C++ are irrelevant to whether or not an object oriented user interface toolkit should be written in C++; the existance of GNU C++ merely means that it is now a lot easier to get a hold of a C++ translator for some machines. - Bill