GCC plugins, derived work, mere aggregation
GCC plugins, derived work, mere aggregation
Posted Jan 26, 2014 14:30 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544)In reply to: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft by nybble41
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft
> Even if a plugin is obviously designed to "work with" GCC,
> that doesn't mean that it's derived from the GCC codebase.
> that doesn't mean that it's derived from the GCC codebase.
Correct. That's why I didn't say that. I said GCC's plugin interface can require intimate communication, such as sharing of data structures. After a certain point (for which there's unfortunately no clear line), a judge will decide that the new code is an extension of the existing GCC code rather than being a separate work which simply interacts with GCC.
> The only real question would be whether you could distribute
> the plugin together with GCC
No. The relationship between two works depends on things that happen when the second work was being written, not what happens at the moment of distribution.