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RE: New 'as' port: GPL requirements?


John Moran wrote:
> Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> 
>> This conversation is _OFF TOPIC_ for this list.  Please take it
>> somewhere else.
> 
> I would like to develop 'gas', but its licence terms may not make this
> possible. It seemed to me that this would be a suitable place to find
> out before proceeding on to specific technical matters. My apologies if
> I was mistaken.

  Dan, I'm sorry to extend this thread by one further post, but there is a
GPL-compliant way to make this work.  [  John:  There is no ambiguity, no
matter what you may hope, in the GPL in this matter, and linking a GPL'd work
against a proprietary library and distributing the binary is unquestionably a
breach of the GPL and the courts have ruled so on numerous occasions.  I'm not
going to discuss the theory of the GPL, it's simply in no doubt on this issue.
This is going to be a post with technical (software engineering process)
content instead.  ]


  Write your custom version of gas that links against the proprietary library.

  Do *not* distribute the binary.

  Give your users a set of patchfiles with your diffs against the latest
release version of gas, tell them to obtain and install the proprietary
library themselves, tell them to download the binutils tarball and apply your
patches and build binutils themselves.

  No problems.  Entirely legit.


    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....


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