Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!odi!indirect!benson
From: benson@odi.com (Benson Margulies)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: copyleft
Message-ID: <376@odi.ODI.COM>
Date: 2 Jun 89 11:34:42 GMT
References: <32085@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <6865@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <32126@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Sender: news@odi.com
Reply-To: benson@odi.com (Benson Margulies)
Organization: Object Design Inc., Burlington, MA
Lines: 41

In article <32126@bu-cs.BU.EDU> gjc@bu-cs.BU.EDU (George J. Carrette) writes:
>
>FSF doesnt have the revenue stream to file harassment lawsuits anyway.
>

I must say that this is hardly a reassuring statement.  It would seem
to imply that the FSF would be quite content to file various lawsuits
if the cash was on hand. 

I don't want to be involved in the generic pro/anti FSF dispute.  I'll
just report some facts I know. Lawsuits are expensive to defend.  They
scare away potential financing. The perception that the FSF might
mount a lawsuit has caused at least one company I was very involved
with to avoid extensive use of FSF materials. 

If the FSF made some clear statements of policy in some areas, and
distributed them along with copyleft, it would help. Questions include:

1- If I find 200 lines of really useful code in some FSF item, and
include it in my 10,000 line (hiss) non-free product, does FSF claim
that I must distribute the source of all 10,000 lines?

2- If I include include files and link in object files from the g++
library, does FSF claim that I must distribute all of my source?

3- If I start with an FSF item, and add a large mound of additional
code to specialize it for use in a particular environment (which
environment is not freely available), does FSF claim that I must
distribute the code I added? The entire environment?  (e.g., porting
GCC to a new target, connecting gdb to a proprietary window system).

FSFers: I'm not arguing that you should answer these questions one way
or the other. It's your code, do what you want with it to advance your
goals. But a clear, official FSF position on this class of issue would
could only help, as it would limit the pessimistic defensiveness of
lawers.




Benson I. Margulies