[U-Boot] U-book and GPLv3? (fwd)

Richard Stallman
2009-07-02T13:56:32Z

> As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is
> because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard
> parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the
> decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already
> permitted use for non-free programs.

If you aren't happy that they help proprietary software - why not change the
license to make it so? You recently had the chance to do that with the gcc
runtime libraries - but you (or the FSF/GCC steering committee) also decided
not to.

I have a feeling those actions would backfire. Proprietary software
is always bad, but that doesn't mean every possible attack against
proprietary software is always good.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gcc-exception-faq.html
> We decided to permit this because forbidding it seemed likely to
> backfire, and because using small libraries to limit the use of GCC seemed
> like the tail wagging the dog.

I don't understand the how on one hand there is the "uncompromising attitude
on ethical issues" (at least according to wikipedia) - but the FSF decides
the practical considerations for other projects - "the tail wagging the dog".

The decision being discussed in that page is a decision for GCC, not a
decision "for other projects". (We can't decide for other projects.)
The text describes why we did not put a stronger condition in a
certain GCC license.

How is the certification authority issue - whether is is a cell carrier (which
the GPL3 says is an acceptable certification authority) and the FDA (which
the GPL3 does not say is acceptable) determine when something is the tail or
the dog?

This has wandered rather far away from what the GPL says and from what
I said. A cell phone carrier is not a certification authority, but
the question is irrelevant to GPLv3 since it gives no special
privilege to certification authorities.