Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 09:06:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Edwin Phillips <flaregun AT strauss DOT udel DOT edu>
Subject: Re: Question about GO32 and commercial code.
To: Ross Williams <ross AT guest DOT adelaide DOT edu DOT au>
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu

On Tue, 12 Jul 1994, Ross Williams wrote:

> 
> Dear DJGPPers,
> 
> I'm trying to build a commercial product for which I will be charging
> *money*. I tried to compile it under Borland C, but there wasn't
> enough run-time memory, and Borland don't sell a DOS extender (at
> least not this week). So I got hold of a copy of DJGPP and
> successfully compiled my program under it. It's great! Everything
> looks flat inside of DJGPP. I'm very impressed.
> 
> Anyway, I copied my executable PROG.EXE onto a disk and took it to a
> beta tester and it wouldn't run on his machine. It said it couldn't
> execute GO32. Now I knew when I linked my program that GO32 was
> involved, but I thought that by using coff2exe after linking, that
> GO32 would not be required at run time. Seems that it simply means
> that you don't have to actually type GO32 as a prefix to the command
> line, while still requiring GO32 to be present and "in the path".
> 
> The other thing is that I want to be sure that my shipped executable
> is free from FSF code. My understanding is that it will be free from
> FSF code because: 1) GO32 is written by DJ, not FSF, 2) docs say that
> the only libraries linked in are libc.a and libgcc.a, and they're not
> FSF.
> 
> So in the end, I have two questions:
> 
>    1) Do I have to ship to my customers GO32.EXE as well
>       as MYPROG.EXE? Is there any way of avoiding this?

Yes.  GO32.EXE is absolutely necessary.  Probably the best thing to do is 
create an executable with GO32.EXE and your program together:

gcc -c myprog.c
copy /b \djgpp\bin\go32.exe+myprog.o myprog.exe

And voila!  No need to worry about GO32 being in the users path, etc.  
There is however the problem of video drivers (if you are doing 
graphics).  This can be solved by making MYPROG.BAT, which sets the GO32 
environment variable for the correct driver, and then runs MYPROG.EXE

> 
>    2) Assuming I don't link in any libraries explicitly, is it
>       OK/legal to ship MYPROG.EXE (and if necessary GO32.EXE)
>       to paying customers?
>

	I'll let DJ handle this one.  He's the authority on GO32.

> I'd VERY much appreciate answers to these questions.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ross.
> 
> +--------------------------------------------------------------+
> | Name    : Dr Ross N. Williams                                |
> | Company : RockSoft Pty Ltd    (Reg TM Australia, TM USA)     |
> | Net     : ross AT guest DOT adelaide DOT edu DOT au.                        |
> | Fax     : +61 8 379-4766    24 hours                         |
> | Phone   : +61 8 379-9217    24 hours                         |
> | Snail   : 16 Lerwick Avenue, Hazelwood Park 5066, Australia  |
> | Archive : ftp.adelaide.edu.au/pub/compression and /funnelweb |
> +--------------------------------------------------------------+
> 
> 

/****************************************************************************/
/* Ed Phillips  flaregun AT strauss DOT udel DOT edu      University of Delaware       */
/* Jr Systems Programmer  (302) 831-6082    IT/Network and Systems Services */
/****************************************************************************/