GPL and the "system library" exception
Dear debian-legal@,
suppose I compile the following trivial GPL-2-only program:
+---
| #include <exception>
| int main() { throw std::exception(); }
+---
Then the resulting binary program links (among other things) against
libstdc++6, licensed under GPL-3+ with runtime exception.
The GPL requires the complete source code to be distributed under the
terms of the GPL; this is not possible here (the source for libstdc++6
cannot be distributed under GPL-2).
There is one exception:
+---
| source code distributed need not include anything [...] of the
| operating system on which the executable runs
+---
But, alas, the exception has an exception:
+---
| unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
+---
People have argued before that this applies to Debian. In that case
Debian wouldn't be able to distribute binaries of GPL-2-only programs
linking against any GPL-3+ runtime libraries like libstdc++? Or am I
missing something?
What would be different if I would link libssl instead of libstdc++? It
is "only" a different GPL-2-incompatible license, so both cases should
result in the same result?
(I came to this question from [1] which again raised the problem of
OpenSSL and Fedora's solution of handling libssl as a system
library[2].)
Ansgar
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2019/03/msg00083.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:FAQ#What.27s_the_deal_with_the_OpenSSL_license.3F
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