Herbert Xu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Here's a teaser for all the licence enthusiasts here. > > FreeDOS includes components which are licensed under the GPL. Those > components are currently built with a compiler from Borland, and > consequently linked with the C library that comes with it. The licence > of the library is of course not compatible with the GPL. > > The question is, can the C library from Borland be considered a part of > the operating system (FreeDOS in this case)?
The GPL makes a "special exception" for components of the "operating system on which the executable runs". I don't suppose FreeDOS runs on an operating system, so I don't think you can use the exception. That means you can't distribute the binaries at all unless the authors of the GPL parts give you some additional permission. > This will decide whether we can distribute FreeDOS binary packages as > currently it requires the Borland compiler to build. Why does it require Borland? Probably you can use the Borland compiler without using the C library that comes with it. You are probably using only a few simple functions from the C library, anyway. If you stop using the Borland C library then probably the binaries could go into Debian's contrib (not main because you need a non-free tool to build them). Edmund
