Re: License question

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 06:47:44PM -0800, Pete Nordquist wrote:
>I read the following on
>http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/faq/faq_1.html#SEC4
>
>In particular, if you intend to port a proprietary (non-GPL'd)
>application using Cygwin, you will need the proprietary-use license for
>the Cygwin library. This is available for purchase; please visit
>http://www.redhat.com/software/tools/cygwin/ for more information. All
>other questions should be sent to the project mailing list
>cygwin at cygwin dot com dot  
>
>I don't understand how Redhat can release libcygwin.a under a
>proprietary license for customers to use to produce proprietary code.
>Isn't customer code produced using the proprietary version of
>libcygwin.a also statically linked with gcclib, which is licensed under
>the GPL? 

So what you're implying is that every binary produced by gcc is GPLed?
Doesn't that sound odd to you?  You are aware that there are proprietary
programs on linux, right?  And that people use gcc to produce
proprietary programs on other computers?

The libgcc parts that get linked into your program are covered under
a special exception:

"In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the
Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to link the
compiled version of this file into combinations with other programs,
and to distribute those combinations without any restriction coming
from the use of this file.  (The General Public License restrictions
do apply in other respects; for example, they cover modification of
the file, and distribution when not linked into a combine
executable.)"

cgf
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