Re: Alternatives to gcc (was Re: gcc 4.3: when will it become standard compiler?)

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Eitan Adler <eitanadlerlist_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> I never took care about GPLv2 and v3
>> differences but know, this seems to come to relevance in some way.
>
> I don't seem to understand this.  Why should gpl v3 affect the OS?  The
> output of the compiler isn't affected by the license.  Is it?

Yes the GPLv3 is `extremely viral' when dealing with proprietary
innovations and features, compared to GPLv2. Hence that's why Apple,
Cisco, Intel, Juniper, etc are incredibly wary of licensing, and are
sidestepping around the whole GPLv3 issue as much as possible,
wherever possible.

Many companies also have to write in functionality and tie-ins which
expose portions of the OS, debugging tools, libraries, etc that would
require them to expose their proprietary secrets. They should be just
as exposed with GPLv2, but the GPLv3 is more stringent and the FSF is
ramping up copyright infringement notices to get people to adhere to
the licenses they accepted when they started hacking at the relevant
pieces of opensource software, as many people having been conforming
to the licensing agreements and terms contained within the accepted
licenses.

Definitely look up the terms of the LGPL and GPL and compare and
contrast those licenses versus the BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses. You
might be surprised...

Cheers,
-Garrett