🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <tim.655872961@ggumby> tim@ggumby.cs.caltech.edu (Timothy L. Kay) writes:
>  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.

Borland has an interesting additional condition: (quoting from the Turbo C++
license)
"... Also, you may not use a Turbo Language product to create, give away,
sell, license, or otherwise distribute a competitive compiler or interpreter
or to substantially duplicate in appearance, functionality or design a Turbo
Language development system or feature or portion of it (e.g. the DOS extender
system)..."

I guess this means that you cannot legally compile any free C, C++, Pascal
or Basic implementation or debugger with TC++ and give away the binary!
--
Erkki Ruohtula     / Nokia Telecommunications
eru@tele.nokia.fi / P.O. Box 33 SF-02601 Espoo, Finland
Disclaimer: These are my private opinions and do not represent the position
            of Nokia Telecommunications.