Date:	Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:52:07 +0200 (IST)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To:	Ned Ulbricht <nedu AT ee DOT washington DOT edu>
cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Suggestion: Portability section for libc docs
In-Reply-To:	<34E06236.3D3B@ee.washington.edu>
Message-ID:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.980211115144.15677F-100000@is>
MIME-Version:	1.0

On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Ned Ulbricht wrote:

> First, this idea would benefit not just the djgpp community, but the
> whole gcc community. I'm completely in favor of it.

DJGPP is the only port of GCC which uses the DJGPP C library.  Since
the additions suggested by Nate are for the DJGPP libc docs, I don't
see how other GCC users could benefit.  ANSI and POSIX standards are
already described elsewhere, and the rest is DJGPP-specific.

> I don't think there's a problem with using copyrighted references as
> *references*. For instance "both Borland and Microsoft say that function
> foo() is portable among MS-DOS platforms" so we *tested* it on them and
> we think it is too. But if we don't test, then I think it ultimately
> just comes down to just copying someone else's work. 

I don't see how telling that a certain function is available or
unavailable in a certain library could be infringement of any
copyright.  The knowledge that I gathered by being a legitimate user
of, say, Borland's products (yes, I *did* pay for it) is AFAIK not
subject to any copyright and doesn't require royalties to be payed.

If you were thinking that we suggest reverse-engineering commercial
libraries, or copying text from them, then you may relax: nobody
suggested that, and I think such an effort is too much anyway.

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