tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) (12/18/89)
>I think (I am not sure) that Perl is not part of the gnu distribution. >But it is distributed under the conditions of the gnu distribution. >If I understand well, it means you cannot include Perl or use source >of Perl interpreter as part of a commercial release. This is quite >limitative for much of us programmers working for private/greedy ;-) >companies (For that particular subject, please direct followup to >gnu.mic.discuss or dev/null) Well, that's not quite true as far I understand these matters. You can include copylefted code as part of a commercial release, providing that you not charge extra for it above and beyond your standard release (save for a maintenance warranty) and that you make the source available. If this means using just some copylefted code in a new work, then the whole new work falls under the copyleft. I'd like to see manufacturers include perl on their standard distribution tapes, and I see no reason that this should violate the copyleft. I can't really see someone using just part of the perl source in a new work anyway. I doubt Larry would have put perl under the copyleft if he thought doing so would limit its distribution, and I don't think it does. --tom Tom Christiansen {uunet,uiucdcs,sun}!convex!tchrist Convex Computer Corporation tchrist@convex.COM "EMACS belongs in <sys/errno.h>: Editor too big!"