Re: Using of parse tree externally

[sam th <sam at uchicago dot edu>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Mark Mitchell wrote:

MM>     Richard>     I'm sure the GCC license could be modified in such a
MM>     Richard> way to say, in effect, "In addition to re-use of GCC
MM>     Richard> source code, any code which utilizes, in any way, any
MM>     Richard> intermediate output of the compiler, such as the parse
MM>     Richard> tree or RTL, or any code which links against sections of
MM>     Richard> GCC, shall fall under the GPL".
MM> 
MM>     Richard> What is your legal basis that such a clause would be
MM>     Richard> enforeable?
MM> 
MM> I asked my wife (who practices IP litigation and writes software
MM> licenses), and she sees no reason why this wouldn't be legal or
MM> enforcable.

I would be interested in why your wife feels that this would be
enforceable, since the only way this could actually operate is via a
license agreement, which the GPL and other associated licenses are
not.  Note specifically the passage

<quote>
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it.  However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works.
</quote>

In fact, GNU software is free for all to use in any way they want.  The
only restrictions are placed on it's distribution.  It is totally
untenable to suggest that a program that uses GCC output may be affected
by the GCC license, just as it would be ludicrous to suggest that
ApplixWare must be made free, since it is likely compiled with GCC, or
that every debugger that could handle GCC output could be affected by the
GCC license.  
           
	sam th		     
	sam@uchicago.edu
	http://www.abisource.com/~sam/
	GnuPG Key:  
	http://pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xCABD33FC
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.1 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

iD8DBQE55pm3t+kM0Mq9M/wRAvorAJ407HEIqrMyb9hWYsrRin8M52/tiACdG5VS
93Qa2uJ9ewNPPdbjZRDyE8w=
=acjf
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----