🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3880A12D.233E2212@wpi.edu>, David Freeman  <free779@wpi.edu> wrote:
>There are, if I remember correctly, two versions of GCC, internal and
>GPL.  The internal version is sold to commercial companies for money,
>and Cygnus makes money.  The GPL version is the one we use.  I've never
>worked on GCC, but it may be possible that you do have to agree to allow
>Cygnus to use your changes and modifications.

  Not quite .. there are N + 1 versions of gcc at Cygnus, one which is
donated to the public, and N customer-specific versions, each of them
slight (or occasionally not-so-slight) modifications of some gcc release.
All of them are GPL'd.  That bears repeating: All GNU code that Cygnus 
sends to its customers are GPL'd.  It is not legally possible to remove
the GPL from any modification of GPL'd code.

  When a Cygnus engineer modifies the code, it usually goes into "devo" 
(when appropriate) and also into one or more customized versions of the 
code.  When it comes time to make a gcc release, the "devo" code is 
frozen except for bugfixes until it's stable, and then a copy of it 
gets made into a release.  (All done with CVS, so it's not really 
"copied", but conceptually this is what's happening.)  Periodically the 
releases are "sanitized" of all customer-only code and "merged" with the 
gcc public code.

  Most customer code eventually gets folded into the public version,
but it can take years before the customer is willing to let that happen.
Sometimes, too, the customer is willing to donate the code to the public
immediately.  There is also some customer code which the gcc engineers
will never *want* to put into the public code, simply because it's not
appropriate -- perhaps it breaks compatability with all CPU's other than
the one the customer uses, for instance.  But on the most part Cygnus
tries to get the customer to agree to keep their code pretty closely 
sync'd up with straight "devo" code, so that a new, better version of 
the customer code can be made just by applying some patches to the new
release.  It makes engineers' improvements to the code (both, the free
contributions and the paid contributions) more available to everyone
(again, both the open source community and the customers). 

  Any delay between the development of code under contract and the 
public release of that code is made much easier to bear when you realize 
that if not for the agreement to delay contributing it to the public, 
it would not have been written in the first place.  The open source 
community does not really lose anything by it; it's just a delayed gain.

>Piercarlo Grandi wrote:
[..]
>> However Sony almost certainly distribute the Cygnus GCC kit with an NDA
>> that forbids revealing to anyone any detail of the PS2 CPU, as Sony are
>> very very keen on NDAs, and thus the recipients of the GCC kit will not
>> be able to further redistribute it; the Cygnus announcements states
>> flatly that the GCC kit is only available to people that have signed the
>> Sony NDA:
[..]
>> If this is the case, wouldn't this be a straight, clearcut violation of
>> the GPL by Sony _and_ Cygnus?

  No.  The GPL requires that whenever the binary is made available, so
must the source to that binary.  By limiting distribution of the binary
to only the customer company, Cygnus is under no obligation to distribute
the source code to anyone other than the customer company.  Similarly, 
the company (Sony in this case) is making the choice to only give the 
binaries (and hence the source, as required by GPL) to people who have
signed NDA's.  The GPL does not oblige or prohibit these recipients to
distribute the GPL'd product, it only obliges them to make the source
code available to whoever they do decide to give access to the binaries.

  Hypothetical situation:  Joe has signed an NDA and has a copy of gcc
which that NDA prohibits him from distributing to anyone who has not 
signed that NDA, and Mark has not signed any NDA.

  If Joe does not give Mark the gcc binaries or source, then neither
the GPL nor the NDA are being violated.

  If Joe gives Mark the gcc binaries but not the source, then both the
GPL and the NDA are being violated.

  If Joe gives Mark the gcc binaries and source, then only the NDA is
being violated.  If Mark then redistributes those binaries and source,
then he is violating neither the NDA (which he has not signed, and is
therefore not limited by) or the GPL.

  Disclaimer:  I am not a lawyer.  My understanding of the GPL might
be flawed.  Believe what I say at your own risk.

  -- TTK