Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
> > This is contrary to other discussions I've read on the topic.
>
> It's what the FSF says also, as far as I know.
>
> > If you include code I wrote in your code, then you have to respect my
> > wishes about the use of the code.
>
> Then you're contradicting yourself there.
>
> > Sure.  What ultimately may come out of the whole GCC kerfuffle is another
> > compiler without those restrictions, if the folks over at the FSF insist
> > on putting stupid restrictions in place.
>
> Then it'll be a battle to see whose version gets incorporated into various
> distros. Which is exactly the problem I'm forseeing.

Something like that happened before.  See egcs.

BTW, I've finally taken the time to read more deeply into the GCC plugin
controversy and by searching through the mailing lists, I reached this:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception-faq.html

It's interesting in that it brings to attention a point that very few seem to
notice when compiling with GCC:  the object code produced by GCC is statically
linked to a myriad of small GPL'd libs and yet you're able to release such
produced code under any license you want.  How can it be?  You see, there was
an exception in the GCC licensing that allowed for this.  So, with GPL3 around,
they thought it would also be a good time to update that exception.  Don't
worry, you can still license the produced code any way you wish.  But the
plugin architecture is what deserved the attention of the updating. ;)

Still, their reasoning seem sensible enough...

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