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From: David Shepherd <des@bristol.st.com>
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: 14 Feb 1997 12:46:30 GMT
Organization: SGS-Thomson Microelectronics Ltd. (Bristol)
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <5e1mr6$868@milkwort.bri.st.com>
References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5d2jpo$bb1@omega.gmd.de> <LJn9y0gTzz1L091yn@ibm.net> <5df12n$ckb@kadri.ut.ee> <5dn154$lgg@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
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X-Disclaimer: This posting is a personal opinion and not that of SGS-THOMSON
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Donal K. Fellows <fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:
: 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 think the GPL states that if you modify GPL code and give the result
(i.e. compiled modified version) then you must make the modifications
available to the end-user and those mods will then be GPL-ed. I.e. you
don't have to make the mods "public" - however you have to give them
to people using the resultant program and then you cannot prevent them
from redistributing to whoever they want.
: 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...
A chip can get "to market" as early as it likes but nowadays it will
get no further unless its got a decent software toolset to support it.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
david shepherd
SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics Ltd, 1000 aztec west, bristol bs12 4sq, u.k.
tel/fax: +44 1454 611522/617910 email: des@bristol.st.com
"whatever you don't want, you don't want negative advertising"