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Does this mean that, in theory, if someone wanted to modify some GPL'd code to merge it into a proprietary project, and they didn't want to GPL the entire proje
by barbs 13y ago
Does this mean that, in theory, if someone wanted to modify some GPL'd code to merge it into a proprietary project, and they didn't want to GPL the entire project, they could modify the compiler to compile the code with the modifications? It'd be a completely round-about way to do it, but in theory would this be legal?
If it were a GPL-licensed compiler (e.g. GCC), they wouldn't need to distribute the compiler-code changes, since they would only be using it internally and not distributing the binary for the compiler itself.
Of course, they could just modify and use a shared-library of the GPL'd code or whatever. At least, that's my understanding, could be wrong...
- adrusi 13y agoWell they couldn't use gcc, because that's also GPL and they'd have to release its source, but if I'm not missing some more nuanced part of the license, they could probably compile with a fork of clang.
- barbs 13y agoSee, I don't think they'd have to release the source for gcc, since they're not releasing the gcc binary. My understanding is, under the GPL, if you distribute the binary, you need to distribute the source.