* Hyman Rosen: > <http://www.osnews.com/story/21882/Microsoft_s_Linux_Kernel_Code_Drop_Result_of_GPL_Violation> > <http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3433>
Apparently, it is unclear that linking GPLed code with proprietary code results in a GPL violation---if the combination is not used to restrict use of the combined work (i.e., you still can run and copy it freely). I haven't checked recently, but I think Microsoft still does this with its GCC distribution in Windows Services For UNIX: GCC is linked against a proprietary libc, and this libc accompanies the executable (so the system library exception cannot be used). Of course, this is not very different from what proprietary UNIX vendors are doing (some of them seem to be eager to use separate media, though). Based on the GPL itself, I would have thought that this type of linking and distribution was forbidden, but the curious lack of enforcement suggests to me that the parties involved assume that this part of the license is, in fact, unenforceable. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
