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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!cloudbreak.rs.itd.umich.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!netcom.net.uk!peernews.ftech.net!telehouse1.frontier-networks.co.uk!basilisk.pdc.nhs.gov.uk!yama.mcc.ac.uk!cs.man.ac.uk!usenet From: f e l l o w s d @ c s . m a n . a c . u k (Donal K. Fellows) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: GPL Date: 10 Feb 1997 11:35:00 GMT Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K. Lines: 31 Sender: f e l l o w s d @ c s . m a n . a c . u k (Donal K. Fellows) Message-ID: <5dn154$lgg@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5d2jpo$bb1@omega.gmd.de> <LJn9y0gTzz1L091yn@ibm.net> <5df12n$ckb@kadri.ut.ee> NNTP-Posting-Host: r8h.cs.man.ac.uk NNTP-Posting-User: 8028 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:157324 comp.os.linux.networking:67879 comp.os.linux.advocacy:83202 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2424 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:52410 comp.os.os2.advocacy:266868 In article <5df12n$ckb@kadri.ut.ee>, Sander Vesik <sander@haldjas.folklore.ee> wrote: > They surely will support the manufacturer of the embeded processor > gcc - who would doubt that they may do with their work whatever they > want (= not allow you to distribute it). I would have thought that this would constitute an infringement of the FSF's copyright on GCC, as the grant of the right to copy and modify GCC is made specifically under the conditions that any modifications made to a redistributed version of GCC be also redistributable under the terms of the GPL, and available from anyone selling the binaries (with a reasonable charge for media - $1000 for a tape is not exactly reasonable though) If the manufacturer wants to use GCC and makes a modification to GCC itself, then those mods must be made freely redistributable or the use/redistribution of GCC is illegal. However, I don't think writing new machine definitions for GCC's back-end counts as mods to GCC, and could be done in such a way as to not be covered by the GPL at all. I still want to know why any company would be bothering to make significant modifications to GCC anyway, seeing as they could leave it alone and concentrate on the rest of the project, so getting it to market sooner... Donal. -- Donal K. Fellows http://r8h.cs.man.ac.uk:8000/ (SAY NO TO COMMERCIAL SPAMS!) (work) fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk Dept. Comp. Sci, Univ. Manchester, U.K. | donal@ugglan.demon.co.uk 6,Randall Place, Heaton, Bradford, U.K. (home) +-> ++44-161-275-6137 Send correspondence to my office ++44-1274-401017 <-+