On Mar 9, 2006, at 12:05 AM, Etienne Gagnon wrote: > > b) a few years ago, Richard Stallman's answered my questions about > using > the GNU GPL for SableVM, and he even proposed a GNU GPL exception for > SableVM. You might actually remember that I reused this text as a > basis > for drafting the current GNU Classpath exception to the GNU GPL. (If > you don't, others probably do). Just to reply to this again since it looks like Something is wrong here in general. The exception in classpath is: As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version of the library, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Which is in my mind too wordy. The exception from libstdc++/libgfortran/libgcc/etc. (though not libobjc, there is a different exception there but just makes sure you are compiling with gcc, I don't know the history about that and why it is still there. I do in the future want to ask how to change it though): In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to link the compiled version of this file into combinations with other programs, and to distribute those combinations without any restriction coming from the use of this file. (The General Public License restrictions do apply in other respects; for example, they cover modification of the file, and distribution when not linked into a combine executable.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lets compare these two, the first says explicitly you can give up the exception while the second one does not. Why and what is the realy a different exception between classpath and libgcc, etc? So the old exception in classpath was: As a special exception, if you link this library with other files to produce an executable, this library does not by itself cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It seems better to use the just to use the canonical form which is the libgcc/etc. wording. What do people think (or do we need to get RMS involved?)? -- Pinski
