[copyleft-next] HBR cure for 2013-02-03

Theodore Ts'o tytso at mit.edu
Sat Feb 9 16:39:07 UTC 2013


On Thu, Feb 07, 2013 at 11:58:06PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> Essentially, there's something strange about the system library
> exception. It's focused on clarifying that you don't have to provide
> source code to something you probably won't have distributable (or
> GPL-compatible) source code to anyway, but it doesn't say how the
> inclusion of the system library in the generated binary affects the
> requirement to license the binary under the GPL.
> 
> The larger issue I was getting at is this: If you distribute a binary,
> and you provide everything needed to generate a functionally
> equivalent binary, why does the license of the original binary even
> matter? The answer might be that the GPL is designed to ensure that
> binaries are easily redistributable under GPL-like terms (royalty-free
> copying and distribution), without expecting the user to have to
> rebuild from source code in order to have a freely-redistributable
> binary. 

Consider if you will the case of Cygnus Support distributing gcc
binaries for Solaris.  Sun stopped shipping a compiler with their OS,
so you couldn't build gcc from source unless you paid them $$$ for
suncc, or if you obtained a bootstrap gcc binary from somewhere.  But
if the gcc binary was linked against the Solaris C library, which was
most definitively _not_ licensed under a GPLv2 compatible license, the
GPL would need to have some provision where it would be legal to
distribute said gcc binary to the Solaris user.

	   	    	      	  	  - Ted


More information about the copyleft-next mailing list