Re: BSD license, core libraries, and NetBSD

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

In chiark.mail.debian.legal, you wrote:

>The system-library exception expressly only applies "unless that
>component accompanies the executable". Traditionally we hold it to
>count as "accompanying" when the library as well as the GPL'ed stuff
>appears in Debian's main archive. I've argued that this is the
>interpretation that is most likely to fit RMS's intentions with the
>GPL.

This interpretation does seem to have the side effect of rendering
NetBSD's distribution of gcc (for instance), uhm, interesting. Has
anyone actually asked RMS what his intention here was?

(And does it suddenly become legal if we distribute a bootstrap install
which contains no GPLed software from somewhere else and then provide
the rest of userland from debian.org? This seems a little, uhm, bizarre)
-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org