🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <NB38eB19w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Lieutenant 030) writes:

   mib@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes:
   > Ah!  You have misunderstood.  "Mere aggregation" of your .c file and
   > the FSF's .c file doesn't cause yours to be placed on the GPL, whether
   > they are called "one program" or not.  The restriction is if you use
   > FSF code *in yours* (by modification, for example), or by distributing
   > an executable in which the two are inextricably intertwined.
   
   So basically, I can completely bypass the GPL so long as the customer has
   his own linker?

Yes.  Furthermore, you can ship a linker with your code, and a shell
script or Makefile that invokes the linker for the customer.  For example,
you could ship GNU ld with your program.

If you use GPL-covered include files to compile your code, the resulting
object files are covered by the GPL and therefore you must supply complete
source.  So don't use GPL-covered include files if you don't want this to
happen.

The one thing that is unclear is the effect of aggregation in a
"self-unpacking" archive.  If this is "mere aggregation", then a
self-unpacking archive that also invoked a Makefile or linker would allow
you to ship a single executable file that configures itself when it is run
the first time without violating the GPL.  I think it would have to be
possible to unpack the archive normally also.

-- 
Enjoy,

Joe Wells <jbw@cs.bu.edu>