* Joe Buck: > On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 01:53:40PM -0700, Florian Weimer wrote: >> Kalle Olavi Niemitalo discovered that as an operating system vendor, >> you are not allowed to distribute GPL version 2 programs if they are >> compiled with GCC 4.4. The run-time library is GPL version 3 or >> later, which is incompatible with GPL version 2, so it is not >> permitted to link this with the GPLv2-only program and distribute the >> result. > > That's incorrect. The runtime library is GPLv3 or later, but with an > *exception* that permits linking not only with GPLv2 programs, but > also with proprietary programs.
Eh, this exception doesn't change that the GPLv2 program perceives the GPLv3 as incompatible. Why would it? I can't take my own proprietary library, give permission to link it with GPLv2 programs, link it with a GPLv2 program, and distribute the result. The GPLv2 license on the program does not permit this. And as far as the GPLv2 is concerned, the GPLv3 is like a proprietary license because it has got additional restrictions.
