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Subject: Re: Linux: how probable is it that it will be relevant in the near future?

Author: David Blackman

Date: 18:47:23 11/11/98

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On November 11, 1998 at 12:05:52, Dann Corbit wrote:


>IF YOUR PROGRAM IS DERIVED FROM GNU PROGRAMS IT IS COPYLEFT.  Section 0.:
>..."The ``Program'', below, refers to any such program or work, and a ``work
>based on the Program'' means either the Program or any derivative work under
>copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
>either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language."
>


>Here is the license.  I don't care what people are saying about it.  I can read
>it for myself.
>

From section 0 of the GPL as you posted it:

>Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by
>this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not
>restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents
>constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by
>running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

The binary you make by compiling using GCC is the output of GCC, therefore it is
not covered by the GPL unless you want it to be. This is deliberate by RMS. Any
statically linked GNU or Linux library functions that might be copied into your
binary are ok because the libraries are not covered by the GPL but by another
different license. Again, this is deliberate by RMS, because he wanted GCC to be
useful even for people doing proprietry software.

I suppose this is marginally relevant to CCC because some of the people here
(shock! horror!) actually write computer chess programs, and might be
considering using GCC or other GPLed compilers to do so. But maybe we should
move the discussion to e-mail now, and just summarise to CCC when we reach a
conclusion.



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