Re: libstdc++ license

["Munagala V. S. Ramanath" <ram at netcom dot com>]

Thanks for all the responses.

The response from Nathan Myers (ncm@cygnus.com), viz. that the C++
library does indeed pull in parts of the C library answers my question
and the suggestion from Joe Buck (jbuck@synopsys.com) that both
statically and dynamically linked versions be provided seems like the
appropriate solution for my need.

Joe Buck also writes:

>(gnu.misc.discuss is better for this than the egcs list, in theory: on
>the other hand you do get harrassed more by anti-[L]GPL crowd).

Since my question was really a technical one (i.e. does using libstdc++
pull in parts of libc if my program does not explicitly use any libc
functions ?) and only tangentially related to license issues, I posted
here.

Ulrich Drepper (drepper@cygnus.com) writes:

>You cannot produce a binary using a statically linked libc without
>having your program available under something different then the
>L(GPL).

I could not understand this (specifically the last phrase) or the
relevance to my question.

He also writes:

>This is an unusual approach but is ok.  I fail to see the point,
>though.  And even more: I would consider using such a binary since a)
>it might use a libc (or any other lib) which is buggy and might be a
>security risk and b) since it unnecessarily requires resources due to
>non-sharable pages.

Presumably, there is a "not" missing between "would consider"; with
respect to buggy libraries, excess resource consumption etc. -- these
are all generally valid points but irrelevant for a demo program which
is what I was asking about.

A demo program is used a couple of times and discarded, so resource
consumption etc. are less important. The most important element is a
pleasant user-experience and for this, static linking is attractive
since it avoids problems such as missing libraries, incompatibilities
due to version skew etc.; it even has slightly better performance
characteristics due to avoiding dynamic linking overhead.

Ram