Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!mbkennel
From: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: GNU copyleft, C++ libraries
Message-ID: <4493@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 18 Nov 88 07:20:32 GMT
References: <307@drd.UUCP> <2060@cbnews.ATT.COM> <775@stolaf.UUCP>
Reply-To: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel)
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 33

In article <775@stolaf.UUCP> mike@wheaties.ai.mit.edu writes:
>Object code produced by G++ does not fall under the copyleft, so you
>can do anything you like with it.  Read the license agreement!
>But object code originating in GNU libraries (that is loaded with
>your program) IS copyrighted by FSF.  So if you want to distribute
>proprietary binaries, you can't load them with GNU libraries.
>But if you write your own C++ library, or use one from the public
>domain or whose conditions permit you to distribute binaries
>containing their object code, you can certainly use G++ as your
>compiler.

This seems silly.  Now, of course, anyone can distribute the G++ libraries
as mentioned in the copyleft.  Presumably they can be distributed in
object as well as source format.  All that goes according to the copyleft.

On the same disk, I have my proprietary object files that I sell.

Now, the customer just links the two together to make an executable.
What, is the real difference between this case and distributing the binary
whole?  Not much, it seems.   Thus, to me, GNU's copyleft seems illogical.

Or is it that anything that happens to be on the same tape as a GNU program
has to be given away free?  :)  (I assume this isn't true...)

>Mike Haertel
>Really mike@stolaf.UUCP, but I read mail at mike@wheaties.ai.mit.edu.

Matt K
mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu

I know this really isn't the right group, but I think that the case of G++
libraries is really the main place this issue would come up, considering G++
to really be a very-widely used implementation of a language.