From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,1d8ab55e71d08f3d X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,1efdd369be089610 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: what DOES the GPL really say? Date: 1997/06/26 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 252879930 References: <33B014E3.3343@no.such.com> <5oqp9s$7vj$1@news.nyu.edu> <33B13BF6.79C7@no.such.com> <33B2ABA6.2A44C487@link.com> <33B2C30C.7EE@does.not.exist.com> Organization: New York University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss Date: 1997-06-26T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: > However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers > can do. ..... I can't incorporate > GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job > they're paying me to do. Indeed you cannot incorporate *any* copyrighted code in your code without permission of the copyright holder. The GPL acts as a general set of permissions to do certain things, but you can no more incorporate GPL'ed code into your code without meeting the GPL conditions than you can incorporate copyrighted Microsoft code into your code without permission! Both actions would be violations of copyright. On the other hand, as I repeatedly note, it is definitely the case that GNAT runtime code with the modified GPL that explicitly expands the permissions of what you can do with this copyrighted code is another issue entirely. Just as a typical propietary compiler contains runtime code, but is delivered to you with a license that allows you to use this copyrighted runtime code in your own applications, the modified GPL provides exactly the same permission to use GNAT runtime code in your applications. Yes, you may want your lawyers to check out the modified GPL to make sure that it meets your requirements, just as you may want to have your lawyer check the runtime license for your proprietary compiler to make sure that it meets your requirements. In practice, this checking out process is typically easier with the modified GPL, since it goes out of its way to confer maximum rights, and minimal restrictions, whereas many commercial runtime licenses are very much more restrictive (e.g. they may forbid any user of the product incorporating the runtime code from doing reverse engineering on these components).