[Freeciv-Dev] Re: KCiv?

[Greg Wooledge <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Trent Piepho (xyzzy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> > Motif is part of most commerical unixes, but is not part of any
> > GNU/Linux or BSD that I know of.  So you could write GPLed programs
> > for commercial unixes that uses Motif, but not Linux programs.  It's
> 
> That doesn't make any sense what so ever.  I compiled a GPLed program that
> requires motif called xmcd on linux.  Was it ok for people to distribute
> xmcd's source before I compiled it on linux?

It comes down to this paragraph of the GPL:

  The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
  making modifications to it.  For an executable work, complete source
  code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
  associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
  control compilation and installation of the executable.  However, as a
  special exception, the source code distributed need not include
  anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
  form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
  operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
  itself accompanies the executable.

Since Motif is "normally distributed" with most commercial versions of
Unix, it was permissible to distribute GPL software that used Motif.

But then Linux came along, and it doesn't pay licensing fees to OSF for
the use of Motif, so it doesn't normally *have* Motif.  Therefore it
raised some debate about the meaning of this paragraph in regards to
Motif programs on Linux, and on Unix in general.

I don't have the answers to that debate -- for that, I'd have to refer
you to the FSF web site, etc.

-- 
Greg Wooledge                  |   "Truth belongs to everybody."
greg@xxxxxxxxxxxx              |    - The Red Hot Chili Peppers
http://wooledge.org/~greg/     |

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