yacc & public domain

[Mark Crispin]

     Would it be possible for somebody who is actually a lawyer
to make an authoritative statement about this on this list instead
of all the flaming?

     Until Unix and personal computers came around, I had never
heard of:
 . the output of compilers being proprietary to the owner of the
   compiler instead or (or in addition to) the owner of the source
   such that the owner of the source must pay a royalty to the
   compiler owner for selling software using that compiler
 . the compiler-supplied runtimes/subroutine library being
   proprietary to the point that any application which uses any
   of these subroutines must pay royalties to the compiler owner.

     "Let's see, I call SQRT twice, ATAN, and CEXP.  That's $100
for SQRT, $250 for ATAN, and $350 for CEXP..."
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