Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 17:37:19 JST
From: Stephen Turnbull <turnbull AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp>
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: CopyLeft and packaging (oops)

One should be a little careful about the constraints of CopyLeft.
The CopyLeft (technically, I guess I should say GNU Public License)
doesn't prevent DJ from packaging the compiler any way he likes (I
think, except that the compiler itself is CopyLeft so he must provide
sources, etc.)  I think even if he mixes things together this is
fine---it's "mere aggregation" (I'm not a lawyer).  However, it
defeats the intent (and maybe the letter) of the CopyLeft if he shoves
the burden of figuring out which modules can be linked in without
invoking the Copyleft onto the users of the compiler.
    Disclaimer:  I'm not a copyright lawyer, nor can I even figure out
whether perl's Artistic License is materially different from the GPL.
Don't trust anything I said above, except that it *does* reflect my
opinions.  For what they're worth....

Stephen Turnbull
Tsukuba-daigaku      University of Tsukuba
Shakai-kougaku-kei   Institute of Socioeconomic Planning