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Re: Licensquestions on GNU Software.
- From: "E. Weddington" <eric at umginc dot net>
- To: Alexandre Oliva <aoliva at redhat dot com>
- Cc: "Johansson Mikael (mj)" <mikael dot mj dot johansson at volvo dot com>, "'gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org'" <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>
- Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 09:12:34 -0600
- Subject: Re: Licensquestions on GNU Software.
On 24 Jun 2003 at 19:47, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Jun 24, 2003, Nathan Sidwell <nathan@codesourcery.com> wrote:
>
> >> If I install a GCC-crosscompilator in a Cygwin-environment
> >> to compilate and link a proprietary software will this
> >> compilated software change from proprietary to
> >> "free software".
> >> I am using free tools under GPL to compilate and link
> >> a proprietary software.
>
> > That is fine.
>
> Not that fast. Even though GCC doesn't propagate freedom to programs
> it compiles, not even by means of libgcc and its other run-time
> libraries, because of the run-time exception to their licenses, the
> Cygwin run-time library has no such run-time exception, i.e., it's
> strictly GPL, and therefore any executable linked with the Cygwin
> library could be considered a derived work, and therefore be subject
> to the rules imposed by the GNU GPL on derived works, namely, being
> covered by the GNU GPL as well. The copyright holders of Cygwin may
> license it to you under different licenses, though.
>
... and the fastest way to tell if your program is linked to the Cygwin run-
time library (cygwin1.dll) is to use the program cygcheck that comes with
Cygwin. It will show a listing of the DLLs that your program is dependent
on. If you have cygwin1.dll listed, then it becomes a derived work, hence
GNU GPL (unless licensed otherwise).
Eric Weddington