🚀 go-pugleaf

>> > I really like to have this cleared up, so I cc'd it to Richard Stallman.

>> Good, perhaps he will respond too.

Bernd> He did. Since he did in private mail, I'll not cite him
Bernd> completely, but he wrote that the people who work on Trillian and
Bernd> GCC

RMS> have a non-binding "gentleman's agreement" not to release them;

Bernd> and therefore don't violate GPL. He also concluded that inhouse
Bernd> copys are not distributions

RMS> but transfer outside the company is distribution.

Bernd> Thus it would be possible to have under-NDA inhouse development
Bernd> (you can't ship, but copying to another cubicle isn't shipping),
Bernd> but as soon as two companies or persons of different companies
Bernd> are engaged in the same project (and need copies to proceed), the
Bernd> NDA degrades to a non-binding gentleman's agreement. It may work
Bernd> so well in case of IA-64, because the gentlemen in question don't
Bernd> understand that it isn't binding ;-). [ ... ]

I understand this, but what for example about Cygnus (now a part of
RedHat) and Sony Playstation 2? Cygnus have announced that they have
supplied Sony with a PS2 GCC kit

  <URL:http://www.cygnus.com/playstation/>

whose compiler code generator etc. by necessity embody a rather full
description of the PS2 CPU architecture.

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:

  Cygnus> [ ... ] Upon becoming a Sony Licensed PlayStation2 Developer
  Cygnus> or Publisher [ ... ] For support questions or for more
  Cygnus> information about becoming a Sony Licensed PlayStation2
  Cygnus> Developer/Publisher, visit: Sony North America Sony Europe

If this is the case, wouldn't this be a straight, clearcut violation of
the GPL by Sony _and_ Cygnus?

I mean, a lot of people have contributed massive amounts of code to GCC, 
and I don't think they did with the intention that derivatives of their
work would only be available to licensees of Sony.

Perhaps Sony regards that all their licensees as their contractors, in
which case under the GPL giving them the GCC it is not distribution to a
third party. This would be straining credulity on a massive scale.