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About the GNU project
GNU Pascal is part of the GNU project which was founded by
Richard M. Stallman in 1984. The aim of the GNU project is
to provide a complete operating system with editors, compilers
etc. as "free software".
People often confuse free software with public
domain software or have other wrong information about the
GNU project. If you want to know it definitely, please read
the GNU GPL (English original or German
translation).
For even more information, please consult the official GNU home page
from the Free Software Foundation (FSF),
http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ (USA),
http://home.pages.de/~GNU/ (mirror in Germany).
Some small notes about common misunderstandings follow.
- It is okay to compile commercial programs written in
Pascal with GNU Pascal. They do not automatically become
free software themselves.
- However when you modify a free program, e.g. the GNU Pascal
compiler itself, your modified work will be free software.
- When using libraries for writing commercial programs, check
the libraries' licenses carefully. The GNU Library General
Public License allows linking a library to non-free software
under certain conditions, the ordinary GNU General Public
License does not.
- It is legal to charge a fee for distributing free software.
If somebody sold you a copy of GNU Pascal you could have
got without paying for it as well, that's in agreement with
the GNU General Public License.
- However if somebody wants you to sign an agreement that you
won't re-distribute the free software you have got, it would
be illegal. That person would lose the right to use and
distribute free software.
- The preferred form to distribute free software is in source
code. This ensures that everybody has (at least in principle) the
possibility to customize the software or to fix bugs by himself.
When we distribute GNU Pascal binaries we do it only to simplify
installation and to encourage its use.
Copyright (C) Markus & Peter Gerwinski, 23 October 1996
Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted
in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.