Re: [ROFL] GCC's GPLv3 "Updated License Exception"

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> If I write foo.c and compile it to foo.o, I don't think there are pieces
>> there.  I then link it with a few other files and it becomes the
>> executable foo.  The only bits in there which aren't my copyright are
>> analogues of the book's cover and printing.

> That's not correct. The executable foo may contain pieces
> (or the entirety, even) of works whose copyright is owned
> by someone other than you.

OK.  I'm assuming here that I wrote all the source myself.  The only
other components in the executable will be "boilerplate" (things like
init code, setting up stacks, reading command line parameters, calling
OS routines).

> Some of them may be requested by you as part of the link process,
> and some of them may be placed there automatically by the linker
> without your specific request.

OK.  You're saying, I think, that this "boilerplate" code gives the
boilerplate's writer some degree of copyright in the executable program.
I'm not at all convinced o this.  Certainly, the world doesn't seem to
work this way in practice, in that if I write some code for a
proprietary OS, and build it with proprietary tools, the tool vendors
don't sue me for royalties.

> Your "book printing" analogy is apt; the cover art will
> generally be covered by a copyright owned by someone other
> than the book author.

It differs from software, though, in that the cover isn't necessary for
the book's purpose.  The "boilerplate" code is absolutely required for
the program to work.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).