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Re: Apple, iPhone, and GPLv3 troubles



On Sep 24, 2008, at 12:57 PM, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:


Chris Lattner <clattner@apple.com> writes:

My personal feeling on the matter is that it seems very strange to
talk about *compiler plugins* in the license for *runtime libraries*.
Considering that there are already widely available alternative
libraries (e.g. the apache stdc++ library and many others) it seems
potentially damaging to the GCC community to try to address the plugin
issue this way.

Here's the problem: the FSF doesn't really want to permit plugins.

So, how do we permit plugins while prohibiting proprietary plugins,
and how do we do it while staying within the bounds of copyright law
which is the basis of the GPL?

Does the obvious answer work?: add it to the license that covers the code in question. Specifically, I think that it would be much more reasonable to add "plugin" wording to the license that covers the GCC compiler code itself. This means that you couldn't use *GCC* if you did something the FSF found objectionable, closing an easy work-around.


-Chris


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