Re: GPL legal question

["Graeme Peterson" <gp at qnx dot com>]

Thanks, all.  More or less what I expected, but I thought I should give it a
try.

Sorry for the off-topic.

Cheers.
GP

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Buck" <Joe.Buck@synopsys.COM>
To: "Graeme Peterson" <gp@qnx.com>
Cc: "Robert Dewar" <dewar@gnat.com>; <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 1:44 PM
Subject: Re: GPL legal question


> On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 12:29:41PM -0500, Graeme Peterson wrote:
> > Thanks.  Our lawyers are reviewing this issue, and as you point out, an
> > e-mail from someone saying "Sure, go ahead" would not be enough.  I did
not
> > really expect to find free legal advice, but I had hoped to open a
> > discussion and see where it led.  Someone must have thought of doing
> > something like this before me, and I am interested in their experience.
I
> > suppose I could have worded my initial posting differently, but there it
is.
> >
> > If this is the wrong forum for this, or if there is no forum for this,
> > please let me know.
>
> This is the wrong forum; this is a technical list for the development of
> the compiler.
>
> There is the Usenet newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss, which is dedicated to
> legal/political arguments about GNU.  The quality of the discussion is
> not terribly high.
>
> You could contact the FSF and ask them.  While their opinion is only an
> opinion, in cases where they have the copyright anything they bless is
> safe, as only they have standing to sue you.
>
> While you should confirm anything with people in a better position to give
> you legal advice, it seems that the main question is whether the following
> "special exception" language (from libgcc2.c, the 3.3.3 release) gives you
> the permission you need:
>
> "In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the
> Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to link the
> compiled version of this file into combinations with other programs,
> and to distribute those combinations without any restriction coming
> from the use of this file.  (The General Public License restrictions
> do apply in other respects; for example, they cover modification of
> the file, and distribution when not linked into a combine
> executable.)
>
> [ That seems like a typo, should be "combined" ]?
>
> The parenthetical remark suggests that maybe you *don't* have permission,
> since you aren't linking into a combined executable but rather a combined
> library.  But of course IANAL.
>