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From: laub@hub.ucsb.edu (Matt Wette (mwette%gauss@hub.ucsb.edu))
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: libg++ caution
Message-ID: <638@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 88 19:21:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: hub.638
Sender: laub@hub.ucsb.edu
Reply-To: mwette%gauss@hub.ucsb.edu
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara
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In article <6590056@hplsla.HP.COM> jima@hplsla.HP.COM (              Jim Adcock) writes:
>After further thought, I feel I must further
>extend my caution to the use of gcc and g++ to
>compile code, with or without the use of Gnu
>libraries.
>
>In that the act of compiling code under these machines
>may [will probably] inject compiled copies of parts of these 
>compilers in your code, and that the compilers themselves contain
>copies of the Gnu licensing restrictions, your code may
>then fall subject to Gnu licensing restrictions.
>
>I can't say for sure.  I am not a lawyer.  Please construe
>the above comments as encouragement for you to go see a 
>lawyer competent in software law before using this or 
>any other "free" software that contain legalese, or even
>quasi-legalese statements.  Please discuss the detailed
>technical issues in how the tool works, and how you plan
>to use the tool CAREFULLY with that lawyer.

Some food for thought ....  The following is an excerpt from 
emacs-18.51/etc/INTERVIEW, text of BYTE's interview with R. Stallman.


                           GNU'S NOT UNIX

                 Conducted by David Betz and Jon Edwards

              Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
                    UNIX-compatible software system
                           with BYTE editors
                              (July 1986)

Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman.  Permission is granted to make and
distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice
appear on all copies.
 .
 .
 .
BYTE: Do you obtain any rights over the executable code derived from the C
compiler?

Stallman: The copyright law doesn't give me copyright on output from the
compiler, so it doesn't give me a way to say anything about that, and in
fact I don't try to.  I don't sympathize with people developing proprietary
products with any compiler, but it doesn't seem especially useful to try to
stop them from developing them with this compiler, so I am not going to.

BYTE: Do your restrictions apply if people take pieces of your code to
produce other things as well?

Stallman: Yes, if they incorporate with changes any sizable piece.  If it
were two lines of code, that's nothing; copyright doesn't apply to that.
Essentially, I have chosen these conditions so that first there is a
copyright, which is what all the software hoarders use to stop everybody
from doing anything, and then I add a notice giving up part of those
rights.  So the conditions talk only about the things that copyright applies
to.  I don't believe that the reason you should obey these conditions is
because of the law.  The reason you should obey is because an upright person
when he distributes software encourages other people to share it further.



Matt