🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 00:55:22 GMT, Piercarlo Grandi <piercarl@sabi.Clara.co.UK> 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:
> 
>   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?

It doesn't look like one by Cygnus: they can license their copy to
anyone they choose; by extension, they can also NOT license it to anyone
they choose.  However, if they do license it, it must be by the terms of
the GPL, so they also license the source, and the licensee may
redistribute both source and binaries to their heart's content (per the
terms of the GPL).  I'd say if Sony requires an NDA that prohibits
further distribution, they can't use gcc.  But of course, IANAL, and
<cynicism>Sony has arbitraily deep pockets, so they would probably just
win by financial exhaustion should it come to a lawsuit</cynicism>.


<N/>
-- 
  you have been evaluated.  you have a negative reference count.  prepare
  to be garbage collected.  persistence is futile.
	-- Erik Naggum