EDA vendors incorporating gcc/mingw/gdb

[Hendrik Weimer]

Peter Roozemaal <mathfox at xs4all.nl> writes:

> AZ wrote:
>
>> I assume that those vendors are not all breaking the law, so how
>> should I understand the term "incorporate"? If a windows installer
>> that installs a big software system places MinGW/gdb into that system
>> subdirectory and then a proprietary GUI calls gcc in the backend and
>> displays its output on the transcript area, then is it incorporation
>> or not?
>
> Short answer: When gcc is on the harddisk as a separate program and is
> run as a separate process, that does not bring the GUI under the GPL.

I am not sure about this. The question is whether one is a derived
work of the other, which is not a technical question on how the the
programs communicate with each other, but a legal one. You cannot
legally build a command-line wrapper for a GPLed library and combine
it with proprietary code.

It is possible that the FSF as the copyright holder of gcc and gdb
does not object such uses, but this would be a special exception
rather than what is being granted by the text of the GPL.

Hendrik