🚀 go-pugleaf

hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) writes:

>How many software companies use the standard libraries that come with
>a commercial compiler?  Shouldn't these companies pay royalties to the
>developers of those libraries?  Or are those royalties included in the
>price of the compiler (so that those of us who use the compiler, but
>not for product development, are helping out the software companies)?

This issue came up about a zillion years ago in the MS-DOS world.  All
the major compiler companies, including Microsoft and Borland, give users
of their compilers the right to distribute code linked from their
libraries.  They have only one (very minor) catch.  As they don't want
the code to fall into public domain (lest their competitors could use
it), they require that any executables that contain such code be copyrighted
in some manner.  By default, startup code that is automatically included
by the compiler/linker contains a copyright notice of the compiler
manufacturer.  You are welcome to change this, but you must supply a
valid copyright notice in its place.

Tim