Re: Apple, iPhone, and GPLv3 troubles

[Ian Lance Taylor <iant at google dot com>]

Chris Lattner <clattner@apple.com> writes:

> 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.

This doesn't work, because it breaks out of the basic framework of
copyright law.  Nobody signs anything or accepts any terms in order to
use gcc.  The FSF wants to stop people from distributing proprietary
binary plugins to gcc.  The copyright on gcc does not apply to those
plugins.  If gcc got a new, non-GPL, license which attempted to
control those plugins, that license would only be binding to the
extent that people explicitly accepted it.  There is no shrinkwrap
EULA on gcc.

Or, perhaps I should say, we could perhaps make that work, but we
would give up other desirable properties of the current regime.

Ian