Basile STARYNKEVITCH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Ian Lance Taylor wrote: > > But as you know, most gcc ports are never contributed anyhow. > > Naively, I didn't know that! > I thought most ports were contributed, but some rejected because of > code quality, lack of reviewers, etc.... > > But does these ports are published elsewhere, in the spirit of GPL, or > are there distributed in a fully proprietary & binary only way (hence > violating the GPL)?
Fallacy of the excluded middle. I'm not aware of anybody who violates the GPL when distributing gcc. But the GPL permits private distribution: if you give people both the binaries and the sources, you have satisfied the requirements of the GPL. That is what happens with private gcc ports: the companies distribute the modified compiler to their customers, but not to the public at large. Under the terms of the GPL, their customers are of course free to distribute the compiler to anybody they choose. In practice, they don't bother; why should they? > There is one (minor, & insignificant in my opinion) argument against > dynamic plugins: they require a dynamic loading machinery (typically > the libdl, dlopen or equivalent libtldl) which in principle could be > unavailable on some bizarre hosts (but I don't know of anymore such > host) In other words, they require additional features than the > theoretical plain C ANSI compiler. Yes. But in practice they can work on GNU/Linux, all Unix systems, Windows, and MacOS, so I don't think this is a major concern. Ian
