Daniel Berlin wrote:
If we are doing that, we really shouldn't be. One of the very explicit freedoms in the GPL is to be able to build versions for internal use that are not publicly distributed.
I completely agree that that is an important freedom guaranteed by the GPL. The GPL requirement that source be available, etc., only applies when distributing the GPL'd application.
However, there's something to be said for making it reasonably hard for users to build versions of GCC that they can't distribute. Otherwise, they could be in legal jeopardy, either from the FSF or from the provider of the GPL-incompatible software. I'd be rather unhappy if I downloaded the GCC source code, configured it for a system explicitly supported by GCC, handed the binary and source to you, and found out I was violating the GPL! For that matter, I'd be unhappy if GCC "tricked" me into violating some other license as well. So, if we have a configuration that we know is undistributable, then making me hack the source code to disable the error, or making me use a configure-time override option seems like a good call.
Thanks, -- Mark Mitchell CodeSourcery [EMAIL PROTECTED] (650) 331-3385 x713
