gnupic: Re: [gnupic] GCC port for PIC
Subject:
Re: [gnupic] GCC port for PIC
From:
Alex Holden ####@####.####
Date:
5 Apr 2006 15:04:58 +0100
Message-Id: <B0A2B9D2-3109-4A70-8AA6-2B0B089D926F@linuxhacker.org>
I'm not sure why I'm bothering to argue this any more as you clearly
don't believe I know what I'm talking about. Good luck persuading
Microchip (and Rowley, and Keil, and all the other toolchain vendors
selling products based around GCC) that their legal departments have
interpreted the GPL incorrectly and they need to GPL their
proprietary libraries and IDEs because they've distributed them in
the same package as GCC. One last time...
On 5 Apr 2006, at 13:49, Colm O' Flaherty wrote:
> I think thats a good summary of our interpretations... The PICC-
> gcc compiler (as opposed to the C30 package which contains it) is
> certainly a "modified work".. no argument there. Why isn't the C30
> package (and its distributed in such a fashion) which contains the
> PIC-gcc compiler also a "modified work" then? It seems to fit the
> criteria.
Because it falls under the aggregation clause. Microchip's C library
isn't a derivative work of GCC because it wasn't created by taking
GCC's code and modifying it. Distributing the two works together in
one package doesn't create a single work that is derivative of both
GCC and the C library. A package file is simply a way of conveniently
distributing multiple works at the same time, and is equivalent to a
CD ROM or a tape archive (.tar files anyone?). You wouldn't say that
every program on a linux distribution CD must be covered by the GPL
because some of the programs on it are GPLed and bundling them
together creates a single derivative work would you?
> And why would the GPL say "These requirements apply to the modified
> work as a whole." if you don't mean the package that contains GNU CC?
That means you're not supposed to only distribute the source code to
part of a modified work, you need to distribute the source to the
whole work. It doesn't say anything about other non-GPLed works that
are included in the same package file as the GPLed work.
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-
> faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic
> See the following:
> - Does the GPL allow me to distribute a modified or beta version
> under a nondisclosure agreement?
> - I heard that someone got a copy of a GPL'ed program under another
> license. Is this possible?
> - If I add a module to a GPL-covered program, do I have to use the
> GPL as the license for my module?
Not relevant to this case. They're not using an NDA as far as I'm
aware, they're not releasing a GPLed work under a different license,
and they're not adding modules to a GPLed program.
> - What is the difference between "mere aggregation" and "combining
> two modules into one program"?
This explains why what Microchip are doing is mere aggregation, not
combining two modules into one program.
--
------------ Alex Holden - http://www.alexholden.net/ ------------
If it doesn't work, you're not hitting it with a big enough hammer
