Sounds like co-distribution is perfectly legal [LWN.net]

Sounds like co-distribution is perfectly legal

Posted Nov 11, 2005 11:09 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Sounds like co-distribution is perfectly legal by vonbrand
Parent article: Debian and Nexenta collide

Oh, come on now. Before there even was Linux (and thus the possibility to even build a fully GPL-compatible system), all GPLed software had to run on propietary systems, simply because there was nothing else to be had.

Yes, but was GPLed software included with proprietary systems ? I know of one sample from that era: NEXTStep (later Mac OS X). All others shipped without any GPL components. If end-user does install GPL software on OS - this is one story (there are special exception in GPL), but if vendor ship GPLed component as part of base system... this is different story.

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Sounds like co-distribution is perfectly legal

Posted Nov 11, 2005 13:12 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

There sure were. DG-UX (Data General) used gcc as their stock compiler. The propietary (I believe source wasn't available) Pro toolset from Cygnus was built around gcc, gdb, binutils, etc. Not just some "shipping with" there, without those tools the rest made no sense at all.

Besides, this is more than a bit strange, all around: DEC provided a tape with "extraofficial software" with their systems, Sun later shipped a CD with such stuff. I'm sure other Unix vendors did likewise. There are vendor sites giving GPLed stuff compiled and packed for their systems (including whatever parts of the libraries and such this requires). And now, when the same thing is being done with an OS shipped in source form, under a somewhat free license (much freer that original Solaris or Ultrix, in any case),it is bad?

Sounds like co-distribution is perfectly legal

Posted Nov 13, 2005 20:28 UTC (Sun) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

The same thing with NextStep. GCC was the system compiler. They modified it to support ObjectiveC, and were forced to release the source code to the ObjectiveC front end, but not for the whole operating system.