> a 6-year-old GCC bolted to a proprietary backend
Not only a violation of the GPL, but for a code owned by the FSF and even Stallman himself.
That's a bold move. And very douchey.
Not only a violation of the GPL, but for a code owned by the FSF and even Stallman himself.
That's a bold move. And very douchey.
They don't link to GCC code directly; instead they output the intermediate representation and execute a standalone binary to finish processing the IR. They offer source code for all their GCC modifications, but carefully work around the GPL to accomplish the same thing.
In general it's 2016 and no longer relevant. The world moved on to LLVM and these GCC using toolchains are on their way out for good.
No it doesn't, and if it did that would only mean that processes that form derivative works of GPLed programs were unlicensed, and therefore a violation of copyright.
As an introductory matter, it is important to note that literal copying of a significant portion of source code is not always sufficient to establish that a second work is a derivative work of an original program. Conversely, a second work can be a derivative work of an original program even though absolutely no copying of the literal source code of the original program has been made. This is the case because copyright protection does not always extend to all portions of a program’s code, while, at the same time, it can extend beyond the literal code of a program to its non-literal aspects, such as its architecture, structure, sequence, organization, operational modules, and computer-user interface."
The GPL cannot create certainty that doesn't exist in the law on which the GPL relies to have any force.