🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <930111.181024.7A8.rusnews.w165w@mantis.co.uk> mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
>barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>> There's an explicit exception in the GPL for OS libraries:
>The Microsoft C libraries aren't supplied with the MS-DOS OS.  So does that
>mean MS have to give me the source because someone's developed an MS C port
>of GCC?

Good question.  The GPL doesn't specifically mention this case.  However,
this doesn't mean that MS has to give you the source.  Rather, it means
that no one can distribute a port of GCC compiled with MS C, due to the
following clause: "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously
your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations,
then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all."

>>     These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole.  If
>>     identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
>>     and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
>>     themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
>>     sections when you distribute them as separate works.
>
>What a horrendously woolly definition.  That should make sure no commercial
>software company touches GPL software.  Are C library routines an independent
>and separate work?  Who can tell.

Sure they are.  People buy C compilers and libraries as independent and
separate products from applications.  A C library clearly isn't a
spreadsheet, word processor, database, etc.

>I don't remember this stuff.  Is it from a new version of the GPL?

Version 2, dated June 1991.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar