Xref: utzoo alt.religion.computers:1287 gnu.misc.discuss:715 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!grapevine!koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com From: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Morals Message-ID: <35062@grapevine.uucp> Date: 5 Jan 90 17:04:35 GMT References: <8437@stiatl.UUCP> Sender: news@grapevine.uucp Reply-To: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Milpitas, CA Lines: 33 Here's what I think people are trying to say. First of all, I don't think anyone is disputing the programmer's right to place one of his own programs under the copyleft. The problem is the implication that some people read into the COPYING file, namely that anything linked with GNU libraries automatically falls under the copyleft. And that's the distinction. When you link with, say, Sun's C library, you're free to sell the program, make it public domain, place it under the copyleft, or whatever. Sun makes you pay for the library, but doesn't try to say anything about what you link with the library once you have it. The way I see it, this problem is pretty simple to solve once and for all, with a change to COPYING: "Incorporating GNU software into another program, and distributing the other program, is equivalent to distributing the program on the same media as the GNU software." The copying rules already state that putting GNU stuff on the same tape as copyrighted material doesn't affect the copyrighted material, so this answers the linking question once and for all. It requires people who link with GNU libraries to make available the source to those libraries, but not to their programs. If that fails, people who need to use GNU libraries can always supply them and make the user link the program. (If the user wants to use an equivalent set of libraries, fine.) Comments from GNU people? --- " !" - Marcel Marceau Steven Grimm Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st koreth@ebay.sun.com ...!sun!ebay!koreth