Sender: nate AT cartsys DOT com
Message-ID: <35BD4F98.3E3B860F@cartsys.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 21:12:08 -0700
From: Nate Eldredge <nate AT cartsys DOT com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET)" <salvador AT inti DOT gov DOT ar>
CC: djgpp AT delorie DOT com, getskow AT uswest DOT net
Subject: Re: Concerning libstdcxx.a
References: <m0z0o8D-000S5fC AT inti DOT gov DOT ar>
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Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET) wrote:
> 
> Nate Eldredge <nate AT cartsys DOT com> wrote:
> 
> > Andrew Getskow wrote:
> > >
> > >     Is libstdcxx.a under GNU public licence agreement?
> >
> > It appears to be under the "Special Exception" license.  This means that
> > the library is GPL (if you distribute it or any variant, you must also
> > distribute the source), but that linking with it does not cause the
> > executable to be GPL'ed.
> 
> I think the same but the info files talks about the streams library as the
> one that have the exception.
> But I think what Nate says is ok. The LGPL library is libgpp.a.

It's a little confusing.  I have the official FSF source package
(libstdc++-2.8.1.1.tar.gz)  here, and it includes the files COPYING and
COPYING.LIB, which are the GPL and LGPL respectively, and the
documentation doesn't talk much about the license.  But all the source
files (at least, all the ones I looked at) have comments at the top
containing the Special Exception.  So I think that's what goes.  It
makes sense, also, since it seems in general that the FSF doesn't want
to "punish" people who only use standard language features, and the
libstdc++ stuff is standard.
-- 

Nate Eldredge
nate AT cartsys DOT com