gnupg windows installer

Richard Stallman rms at gnu.org
Sun Jan 7 10:13:23 CET 2001


	R>   "In one of the mailing lists to which I subscribe, someone
	R>   today suggested that generating binaries with non-free
	R>   compilers, and releasing them under the GPL, (with source
	R>   code of course) violates the GPL."

    As Werner Koch suggested in another mail, the issue is whether the
    Delph compiler is normally distributed with the major components of
    the Windows Operating System under the meaning of the special
    exception granted under Section 3 of the GPL.

If you were concerned about using a library, then the question would
be whether it is normally distributed with one of the major components
of the operating system--one of which is the compiler.

But the question does not even arise for a compiler--only for a library
or something else that gets combined into the program.  There is no rule
that the compiler has to be free software.

Perhaps Werner is thinking about support libraries for Delphi.
These do come under section 3, but the exception applies to them,
precisely because they come with the compiler.



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