Hi All. Preamble: Look below with a global view.... I'm fearful of taking this "thread" to this list. Firsty, the whole license issue is very complicated. Secondly, it is HUGE in volume. Thirdly, it brings up license-WARS from time to time too. Fourth, I don't want to bog down any hints of progress being made here in REAL FreeCard developments. Fifth, it doesn't yet have a clear conclusion / outcome. What I hope to happen is that we have more understanding of what we got. Perhaps it is good to rock the boat before it leaves the harbor. So, I'm somehow going to summarize things here -- but then I run the risk of being les open. :( What I still crave is a license-specific list for FreeCard. Perhaps that could be one of our first things to launch at the new sorceforge site. ?? - - - - - - - - - - first message's reply - - - - - - - - On Tue, 07 Mar 2000, Mark Rauterkus wrote: > I'm trying to get my mind around the ins and outs of the granted GNU > exceptions. I didn't find any list of all the software titles that have been > granted "exceptions". It would be difficult to create such a list, as there are thousands of GPLd programs out there.. > It makes sense that a "compiler" and even the kernel would be an exception > -- so as to allow that tool to craft "non-free" output. It's more than just "non-free" output, as the GPL is not the only free license. The GNU compilers have exceptions, but as I understand it, they're only there to placate some fears. I seem to recall some early rumours that compiling your programs with a GPL compiler would cause the output to be under the GPL. This is patently false, as the GPL already excepts the output of most programs, including gcc. Nevertheless, the fear was there so the exception was added. I still wonder why the Linux kernel is GPL+exception, instead of being LGPL. Can anyone shed light on this? Was the LGPL available when Linux was put under the GPL? According to Linus from an interview, the exception is there so that programs can make kernel calls without falling under the GPL. Without it, one could argue that *every* program running under Linux would be a derivative of the kernel and thus have to be GPLd. This would have killed Linux before it got a foot off of the ground. Many Qt programs that are under the GPL have an exception allowing them to be linked with Qt. A lot of people, myself included, think this is unecessary, but there are those who think programs without are illegal to redistribute. As it now stands, there are hundreds of stable and useful Qt programs available, but Debian only has five the last I checked. Two of them were GPLd with the exception, the remainder were BSD or Artistic. As for other exceptions, I have not seen any, though I have seen one that had a "clarification". -- David Johnson... _____________________________ http://www.meer.net/~arandir/ - - - - - - - - - - next message - - - - - - - - On Tue, Mar 07, 2000 at 09:33:15PM -0800, David Johnson wrote: > I still wonder why the Linux kernel is GPL+exception, instead of being LGPL. Because the exception is arguably just a clarification. Most people (including, I believe, Linus and RMS) believe that a kernel call is just normal use and is not linking. The clarification is just to make it clear to all and sundry from the start. > As for other exceptions, I have not seen any, though I have seen one that had > a "clarification". GNAT has a exception on the runtime library (you can distribute the binary however you want, but the source is GPL), Guile has the same license but with a different wording, LyX (which is not a GNU program) has a clarification/ exception that's worth reading. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Only a nerd would worry about wrong parentheses with square brackets. But that's what mathematicians are. -- Dr. Burchard, math professor at OSU - - - - - - - - - - next message - - - - - - - - On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, David Johnson wrote: > The GNU compilers have exceptions, but as I understand it, they're only > there to placate some fears. I seem to recall some early rumours that > compiling your programs with a GPL compiler would cause the output to be > under the GPL. This is patently false, as the GPL already excepts the > output of most programs, including gcc. Nevertheless, the fear was there > so the exception was added. Actually, I recall a similar problem with flex (or was it bison?). They make use of skeleton files which were GPLed, and which appeared verbatim (plus the generated code) in the program's output. I don't know if there was a similar situation with gcc, but it seems a reasonable concern to me. -- Patrick Doyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - - - - - - - - - end of messages - - - - - - - - So, there is more to do, research and listen-to. Just trying to be prudent in this important topic. Mark Rauterkus [EMAIL PROTECTED]
