Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > Where is the line here?  Does having GPL code define a new API mean that 
  > programs using that new API can be considered designed for linking to 
  > that GPL code?

Yes, if using that API implies dynamically linking with that
GPL-covered code.

This is nothing new.  It has been our position for decades.

  > More specifically, if a future version of GCC, buildable as a Guile 
  > extension, offers access to its AST through a Guile API, would nonfree 
  > programs be able to use the GCC API, or would the GPL protections cover 
  > GCC's API?

Yes.  And the same is the case with GCC's existing API for plug-ins.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
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