Fix gcc_update for libcpp (Was: Re: Mainline bootstrap failure while running aclocal in libcpp)

[Robert Dewar]

Joe Buck wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2004 at 07:22:49PM +0200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
> 
>>On Wed, 16 Jun 2004, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>>
>>>I'd rather have the right version picked up by default.  Heck, not
>>>shipping the gettext.m4 needed to rebuild aclocal.m4 could even be
>>>construed as a violation of the GNU GPL, since we're shipping a
>>>generated file without its sources.
>>
>>You don't need to ship sources, by default, to comply with the GNU GPL.
>>You only need to ship sources upon request.
> 
> 
> Not quite right: you must include a written offer, good for three years,
> telling people exactly how to obtain the sources if you do not provide
> them at the very beginning.  If this written offer is not included with
> the binaries, you've violated the GPL right there.

Note that as always the notion of "violating the GPL" is bogus. The
GPS is a license to copy, if you don't meet the terms of the license,
then you have a potential copyright violation. Potential, because
the validity of the copyright still has to be established.

That's an important distinction, because often people think that somehow
the GPL can suddenly apply to code of their own without any action on
their part. That of course is impossible. The only possible situation
is that distributing something might (or might not be) a copyright
violation if the terms of the GPL are not met.

Note in the above that the written offer must apply to all third
parties, whereas if you distribute the sources, you have no obligation
with respect to third parties.