On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 10:37:47 -0500 Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 02, 2006 at 01:35:42PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 01, 2006 at 09:58:17PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
[...]
> > > The GPL says:
> > >
> > > "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work
> > > for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete
> > > source code means all the source code for all modules it
> > > contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus
> > > the scripts used to
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > control compilation and installation of the executable."
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> > > (If there's some other rationale for "the GPL explicitly includes
> > > such tools as 'source'", I missed it.)
> >
> > I was referencing the ^^^ed part. That sentence reads to me as 'the
> > build system', and such a tool smells like part of the build system.
>
> It doesn't say "the build system". It says "the scripts used to
> control compilation". Makefiles, linker scripts, autoconf templates.
> If it was meant to include compiler-like tools, it would say "the
> compiler used to build the executable", but it clearly avoids that.
> (For good reason: compilers are *not* part of a program's source code,
> and the GPL's definition of the term tries to be in line with
> reality--with more success than most.)
>
> The GPL does not require that tools used to generate HTML from
> comments be made available, or any other such tools.
I agree.
It seems to me too that compilers and the like are excluded from the
GPL's definition of "source code".
I think that one can publish a GPL'd program which requires a
proprietary compiler to be built.
Even if the program includes GPL'd code copyrighted by others.
--
:-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-)
......................................................................
Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4
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