Re: Question About GNU General Public License

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 13:28 +0200, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> [...]
> > Then why doesn't the program fullfil its purpose without the
> > library, either at compile time or at run time?
> 
> I'm tired of you. Copyright law doesn't care whether it does "fulfill 
> its purpose" or does not. And it cares neither about "compile time"
> nor about "run time". Section 101 of the United States Copyright Act
> defines a "computer program" as "a set of statements or instructions 
> to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring 
> about a certain result."
> 
> #include <war>
> 
> int main() {
>   unsigned explosive_power = 0; 
>   while (still_not_elminated("FSF"))
>     send_a_bomb("FSF", explosive_power += 10/*kiloton*/);
> }
> 
> is a complete computer program (race condition aside or a moment ;-) ) 
> even apart from <war> declarations and definititions. Got it now?

[rms@roque rms]$ make z
cc     z.c   -o z
z.c:1:15: war: No such file or directory
make: *** [z] Error 1

No, it's not complete.

> "a set of statements or instructions 
> to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring 
> about a certain result."

Oh my... thank you for that quote, you've just made my day!

"in order to bring about a certain result" -> fullfilment

used directly or indirectly -> executable or library

Get it now?

Rui

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