From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:21:03 -0500 Message-ID: References: <54B1B97E.9070204@gmail.com> <87fvbhk4ha.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <54B456C8.6010506@gmail.com> <8761cbhvhb.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <54B5AA10.7080606@gmail.com> <54B6F8EF.7020401@gmail.com> <54B8326B.90804@gmail.com> <54B889CC.9030401@gmail.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1421439676 27252 80.91.229.3 (16 Jan 2015 20:21:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:21:16 +0000 (UTC) Cc: dak@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: jcb62281@gmail.com Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jan 16 21:21:15 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YCDOH-00015y-Uu for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 16 Jan 2015 21:21:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57284 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YCDOH-0006Cm-A6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:21:09 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48608) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YCDOD-0006Ch-8S for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:21:06 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YCDOC-0001EJ-DQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:21:05 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([208.118.235.10]:54111) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YCDOC-0001EF-9s for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:21:04 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YCDOB-0000wI-LN; Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:21:03 -0500 In-reply-to: <54B889CC.9030401@gmail.com> (message from Jacob Bachmeyer on Thu, 15 Jan 2015 21:47:24 -0600) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 208.118.235.10 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:181344 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > This illuminates the central question at hand: if an Emacs plugin is > GPL, and provides access to internals of GCC, which is also GPL, can > nonfree software use that Emacs plugin? "Use" is too broad a word; such a broad question has no answer. Nonfree software can't be _combined_ with GPL'd code, which includes that plug-in (what the plug-in _does_ is beside the point). If a program A "uses" a program B, does this mean the two are combined? That depends on details (and there may be a gray area; also, we can't be sure where courts will say the border is). What I am pretty sure of is that if the plug-in generates the AST as text, a GPL-covered program could write it into a file, and some separate proprietary program could read the file, and this would not be considered combining the two programs. It would be lawful, and could be quite harmful. This is why there is danger in generating the AST as text. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.