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Re: Corel's apt frontend



On Fri, Oct 29, 1999 at 07:45:43PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote:
> David Starner <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu> writes:
> 
> > > (This case seems similar to the one
> > > where Next wanted to ship GCC with their own Objective-C frontend, but
> > > not to release the frontend under the GPL.  RMS had his laweyrs write
> > > to them and Next changed their mind.)
> 
> > But the frontend actually has to be linked to GCC.
> 
> I always wondered - if NeXT really had been serious about going
> proprietary with their front end, what would have stopped them
> from creating
> 
> - a fully GPL'ed GCC fork which had the ability to dynamically link
>   to third party "plug-ins" for doing front-end stuff, using some
>   appropriate open interface
> 
> plus
> 
> - a proprietary, binary-only Objective-C plug-in?

RMS argues that that is illegal - that the plug-ins to a GPL program
are derivates, and must come under the GPL. Actually, something many 
people have wanted to do for legimate reasons, is make the backend
a seperate program, and have the frontend spit out a tree file that
the backend reads in. NeXT could have done that. As I mentioned,
DEC Modula 3 did something similar. I've also seen something on
the compiler list that was known as GNU E (?) and was a GPL'ed 
frontend and completely proprietary libraries. NeXT also could 
have made the port in such a way that it only targeted NeXT systems,
and put the real proprietary stuff in the kernel or system libraries. 

--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org


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