RE: [Mingw-users] mingw licensing

[Andrew S. <ac...@sy...>]

In the future, please post in plain text.  Some readers have trouble quoting
html source.

The best place to go for a detailed and authorative answer to this question
would be the gcc website (gcc.gnu.org). However, for a non-authorative
answer to your query, please read on.

An excerpt from the GPL license:

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered
by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program
is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its
contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been
made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the
Program does.

My interpretation of the above excerpt:

The 'output' of a program is generally considered to have the same copyright
as the programs input.  In this case, your output (in this case, the
compiled program) would have the same copyright you apply to your source
code (the input).  There are a couple of caveats here:
1. If you link to a GPL'd library, then you program falls under the GPL.
2. If the program puts a portion of itself into the output (e.g. bison,
libstdc++)
(It should be noted here that the last time I checked (two days ago) both
bison and libstdc++ have exemptions in their licence allowing this).

So what does this mean?

You can assign whatever licence you want to your own 'stand-alone' program.
The only time you have to start worrying is when you start linking in other
libraries, then you must check the licensing on those libraries.
Considering the number of libraries out there which have been released (or
re-released) under the LGPL, this shouldn't become too much of an issue.

Andrew.

-----Original Message-----
From: min...@li...
[mailto:min...@li...]On Behalf Of Maurizio
Sent: October 30, 2002 12:51
To: min...@li...
Subject: [Mingw-users] mingw licensing


Hello,
i could see that mingw runtime libraries
are absolutely free from any kind of license,
but I could see also that the gcc compiler
is released under GPL license...
so...
If I decide to produce commercial software
using mingw, do I have to release the source also,
if requested???????

Thanx in advance helping me in this simple matter! :-)

Maurizio