New GCC Runtime Library Exception: not fit for purpose

[Joern Rennecke]

Quoting Manuel López-Ibáñez <lopezibanez@gmail.com>:

> 2009/1/29 Joern Rennecke <amylaar@spamcop.net>:
>> Quoting Paolo Bonzini <bonzini@gnu.org>:
>>
>>> Joern Rennecke wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Quoting Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not sure what your point is here.  newlib is not under the GPL in
>>>>> any case.  It is not affected by the gcc runtime library license.
>>>>
>>>> The old runtime library exception allowed you to distribute binaries that
>>>> both include pieces of the gcc runtime and arbitrary pieces of newlib,
>>>> without requiring the distribution to be under the terms of the GPL.
>>>> I.e. your could link non-GPL code against both the gcc runtime and newlib
>>>> and distribute it.
>>>> The new license does not allow this unless all parts included from newlib
>>>> are written in a high level language AND use the gcc runtime.
>
> This doesn't make any sense to me. If a module X (including any part
> of newlib) is not written in a high-level language, it doesn't need
> compilation. So they are allowed to link GCC libraries.

That does not follow.  There is no provision in the license to allow this.

> If it does not
> link with GCC libraries, it is not affected by the GCC's GPL. What is
> the case that I am missing?

It is common to link code that requires both libgcc and newlib, where not
all used parts of newlib need libgcc.

>> It is not the parts of newlib that are affected, it is users that are
>> affected who want to link newlib which includes these parts - together
>> with libgcc and Independent Modules, and distribute the resulting
>> binaries under non-GPL terms.  They will no longer be allowed to do
>> this with when they are using a single link step, as they are creating
>> a derived work for which they have no license to distribute, except
>> possibly the GPL.
>
> It doesn't matter if you link incrementally or in a single step or
> your code is ready for dynamic linking (the GPL does not differentiate
> between static or dynamic linking for derived works), the only
> important thing is what you end up propagating.

Yes, but you could propagate the partially linked work.
Under terms that allow yourself to propagate derived works that incorporate
other code.