Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!AI.MIT.EDU!rms
From: rms@AI.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8906072050.AA00457@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 7 Jun 89 20:50:23 GMT
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
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    >Ok, now I have a question.  What would be the attitude toward a developer
    >who distributes .o files containing proprietary code, source to the GNU
    >libraries in question, and leaves the end user to compile and link them
    >together on his own?

    This is the one certified way of beating the copyleft, which RMS does not
    like to advertize.

I've dealt with this in another message.  Here I would just like to remind
people not to believe what is said on this subject by the various hostile
people posting here.

    ...It even has the feature that the copyleft prevents the
    end user from redistributing the resulting binary because he does not have
    part of the source.

This person has got so carried away with his rhetoric that he forgot
his own premises.  Remember we are supposing someone linked a
*proprietary* object file with GNU code.  Distributing the resulting
executable would be forbidden by the person who sold that object file.
So it doesn't matter much whether the copyleft forbids this or not.