Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!sun!sally!plocher
From: plocher%sally@Sun.COM (John Plocher)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: Some people won't use GCC
Message-ID: <108109@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 5 Jun 89 20:26:35 GMT
References: <4818@uoregon.uoregon.edu> <8906051911.AA00256@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu>
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Reply-To: plocher@sun.COM (John Plocher)
Distribution: gnu
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+---- In <8906051911.AA00256@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> rms@AI.MIT.EDU writes:
| This is small consolation for the disadvantages.  If I made GCC public
| domain, companies would port GCC to their machines and would call the
| machine descriptions proprietary.  As a result, only a few machines
| would be supported in our distribution.
+----

In a nutshell, here is the main thrust of the GPL as I see it:

	The Gnu Software is available to you with source code for
	FREE.

	If you distribute the software to others, you must also make it
	available to others, WITH source code, for free.

So far, no problems for anyone.  This is what we all want.  The
copyleft (AKA GPL) is explicit about this - in a way that would not be
possible if the software was declared Public Domain.

But there is a third prong in the GPL:

	Any software developed using Gnu software, or incorporating
	parts of Gnu software, which is distributed to others must be
	available to them under the terms of the GPL:  Free, with
	source, and without any restrictions on redistribution.

This seems to mean that if I re-use some functions from (say) the Gnu C
compiler in my pocket sized ADA(tm) interpreter, I can not make a
commercial product out of it.

I can live with this - after all, I couldn't take parts of AT&T's C
compiler and use them in my own product either.

BUT - it also seems to mean that if I use gcc to compile my software
then my software is covered by the GPL.  i.e., I am including Gnu
header files and libraries into my code.  That means that my code "IN
WHOLE OR IN PART CONTAINS OR IS A DERIVATIVE OF GNU___ OR ANY PART
THEREOF".  (same arguments about flex, bison...)

THIS IS THE REASON THAT I (as a seller of commercial software) DON'T
DARE USE GNU SOFTWARE in any way relating to the products that I ship.
It is because of this threat of "contamination". [1]

rms's reasoning here is clear and consistent.  He opposes the idea
of people *selling* software.  The GPL is a good way for him to enforce
his beliefs.  The fact that I don't agree with him completely in those
beliefs does not (and can not) alter the way that the GPL is interpreted.

As long as everyone understands that the GPL is designed to thwart
attempts by others to comercialize the software covered by it we all
can live with it.  Some of us will embrace it, others will reject it.
The rest of us will make informed decisions on a case by case basis.

   -John Plocher

_________________
[1]
  I don't mean anything bad in the use of the word "contamination".  In
experimental science a sample is said to be contaminated when it is made 
impure by contact or mixture with anything outside the sample.