Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!chaph.usc.edu!usc.edu!raulmill From: raulmill@usc.edu (Raul Deluth Rockwell) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: FRILL Message-ID: Date: 22 Dec 89 16:49:45 GMT References: Sender: news@chaph.usc.edu Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 37 In-reply-to: raulmill@usc.edu's message of 21 Dec 89 19:45:48 GMT In article raulmill@usc.edu (Raul Deluth Rockwell) writes: [... cancel that, you didn't really want to read that stuff anyways, did you? ...] A short time after I made that posting, somebody wrote me to say that I am already too late, that there is already at least one group working on creating freely redistributable ANSI/POSIX linked libraries for C. Oh well 8^) Of course, these routines aren't all written yet, nor are they ready for distribution, which makes them almost exact (drop-in 8^) replacements for the GNU libraries. That ought to make Everybody happy! [meanwhile, back at the ranch] The whole issue of distribution of linked libraries seems a bit short-term to me. It only applies to linking prior to distribution (a rather arcane concept). There is also installation-time linking (I seem to remember NEXT using this as a belated workaround of GPL) and run-time linking (I don't suppose you've ever heard of the Amiga? No? How about Multics? No? Maybe SunOS (v4)? No? I'm sure there are other examples 8^). I can just see it: $100000000 lawsuit charging for infringement of copyright, seems somebody wrote some libraries for C which are identical to somebody elses. Happens that both are a set of calls to a dynamic (run-time) library. You can't prevent silliness in everybody, at times you can only work around it. -- Raul Rockwell INTERNET: raulmill@usc.edu ! UUCP: ...uunet!usc!raulmill ! 55 mph = 82 nc U.S.SNAIL: 721 E Windsor #4, GLENDALE CA 91205 ! --