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From: "Pete Nordquist" <pnordquist AT charter DOT net>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: License question
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 22:04:01 -0800
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Thank you, Christopher, for your quick reply.  I didn't mean to imply
that every binary produced by gcc is GPLed.  I am relatively new to
licensing, am not a lawyer and am trying to reconcile what I read in the
GPL and LGPL with how binaries are produced.  The "In addition ... "
text you quoted below certainly seems to cover my question, but I can't
find this text in either the GPL or the LGPL.  Have I just missed it in
the GPL and LGPL, or should I be looking somewhere else for this text?
Thank you for your consideration,

Pete Nordquist
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Southern Oregon University
nordquip AT sou DOT edu
541/552-6148

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Faylor [mailto:cgf-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com] 
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2003 8:43 PM
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: License question


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.
>
>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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