Date: Tue, 12 Jul 94 09:33:39 -0400
From: dj AT ctron DOT com (DJ Delorie)
To: ross AT guest DOT adelaide DOT edu DOT au
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: Question about GO32 and commercial code.

> 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".

coff2exe just prepends a stub.  Use "coff2exe -s go32.exe myprog" to
prepend the extender instead.  I prefer you do it the stub way, but
you can do whichever you want.

> 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.

If you don't use libgpl.a or libgpp.a or bison, there's no GPL code in
your program (unless you included GPL sources yourself).

>    1) Do I have to ship to my customers GO32.EXE as well
>       as MYPROG.EXE? Is there any way of avoiding this?

You need go32 to run your program.  You may include it, and possibly
emu387 and any graphics drivers, on the disk with your program.

>    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?

Yes.  If you use the stock go32, all you need to do to comply with the
copyright is include a note that tells the customer how to get djgpp.
If you modify go32 at all, you need to include it's sources as if the
GPL applied.