public domain?

[Mark Crispin]

     I have been told the following things about the Unix software world.
I would appreciate some commentary about how [un]true these statements
are:
 . the object code from a proprietary C compiler is itself proprietary.
 . the executable binary of a C program is proprietary if it uses any of
   the standard library functions, which are proprietary.
 . any program written in yacc is proprietary, because the algorithms
   output by yacc are proprietary.
 . the proprietary ownership of all of this is good ol' Bell.

     In other words, what this seems to say is that I am unable to
develop any applications in C or yacc and distribute binaries produced by
a Bell C/yacc compiler without requiring that the site I distribute the
software to has a Unix license.

     I have trouble adjusting to this, coming from a world (DEC-20) where
no matter how proprietary the compiler may be, the ownership of the
executable binaries belongs to the owner of the source code even if some
library routine from the compiler's runtimes is used.

     Perhaps GNU may be a salvation, however the GNU developers may not
be totally sympathetic to my efforts, as part of my plans include the
development of proprietary software -- MY proprietary software.  I don't
want to be limited to selling only to Unix systems though.

     Have any of the legal eagles on this list worked out all the hairy
issues involved?  Does Bell really want to strangle the greater acceptance
of C by making Unix licenses essential to run programs written in it?
-------