Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!oracle!news From: wbailey@oracle.com (Bill Bailey) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Linking with C libraries. Message-ID: <1990Jan8.185253.8145@oracle.com> Date: 8 Jan 90 18:52:53 GMT References: <1990Jan8.054859.557@oracle.com> Sender: news@oracle.com Reply-To: wbailey@oracle.com Organization: Oracle Corp Lines: 34 In article <1990Jan8.054859.557@oracle.com>, wbailey@oracle.com (Bill Bailey) writes: Then, someone calls me demanding the source to platform ABC's C library! After all, section 2b of the GPL requires that I make source available for "the whole" of my program. Since the C library came from platform ABC's vendor, I have never even seen the source and they will not give it to me. Jacob Gore responds: > Since this case is explicitly addressed in GPL, I must assume that you have > not read GPL and hope that it is because you do not have a copy of GPL to > read. Here is a copy of GPL. See the last paragraph in Section 3. Jacob missed the most obvious case: I do have the GPL and did read it but simply forgot about this special case. My mistake. So I will never go to law school. Let's look at the paragraph Jacob refers to: > For an executable file, complete source code means all the source code > for all modules it contains; but, as a special exception, it need not > include source code for modules which are standard libraries that > accompany the operating system on which the executable file runs This seems to further bolster some previous arguments. If I just distribute my object libraries with a Makefile and say "link on site with any ansi C library" then I can't get unintentionally nailed by copyleft. How am I to control whether someone links with the "standard libraries that accompany the OS" or with GNU libraries? What if I distribute my object libraries to someone who runs them under GNU OS where the GNU libraries ARE the "standard libraries?" Help! confused in free software land -bill