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Dynamically linking to a library does not include other people's code, and the license restrictions don't apply. Even though header files can be copyrighted, the API cannot.

It's more complicated than that. Distributing a dynamically linked library, without distributing the product which uses the library, is legal, in and of itself. However, linking that library to the distributed product is creating a derivitive work, and so distributing that library (if it only works with one product) may be contributory copyright infringement. From the LGPL:

A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of this License.

However, linking a "work that uses the Library" with the Library creates an executable that is a derivative of the Library (because it contains portions of the Library), rather than a "work that uses the library". The executable is therefore covered by this License. Section 6 states terms for distribution of such executables.

The quick form is:
1. All system services are processes in Mach, including any form of I/O and authentication, They may be switched in/out be the administrator at will.
2. Users may create their own services that are available to themselves or to others. EX. A user can write their own encrypted filesystem that works out of a single large file in their regular home directory. When they log in, they start up their EFS server, mount the filesystem to their own process and work in it. It is not visible to anyone but themselves, and is visible to their own programs as if it was just another directory. Sound fun?
3. Network services start at low/no authority and gain authority based on the ID/password provided by the requesting client. This really reduces the threat of network service attacks. No more root exploits in FTP or HTTP or other services. (In traditional services, the server has high authority and lowers it based on ID authentication)

If these aren't enough fun, read up to see more.

HURD is a unique product, although I don't agree
with the cathedral like way they produce it

Huh?

Daniel

Yes, unlike Darwin, Hurd is Free, not just source-avaliable.

It'll be interesting to see how Hurd performs against Linux once it's more mature. I strongly suspect that Linux will kick Hurd's arse performance wise, but that remains to be seen. Another Free operating system is of course always welcome.. :)

I'd like a page on the mozilla site explaining what the ... required-by-law [folder is]

required-by-law contains software whose license (typically GNU GPL or LGPL) requires those who distribute binaries to also mirror the full source distribution of all packages involved in the build that don't already come with the operating system. From the GNU GPL (the LGPL has similar wording):

For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains ... [except] anything that is normally distributed ... with the major components ... of the operating system ... If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code

So far, such packages include GLib and GTK+, which are both under the LGPL.

The "experimental" folder contains builds that demonstrate new large patches. It's part of the Patch Landing Tool.

In an attempt to answer all the 'why not just use Linux?' questions, have a look at the man's explanation of it.

Basically, Linux wasn't around when Hurd was started, and they believe it is different enough to complete/compete despite the grand rise of Linux. (Remarkably honest & non-political notes by RMS)

Good luck to them - i hope it succeeds (we can't have Linux becoming a monopoly ... :-)

Where or when did GNU say this?
Please provide proof.

From "Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source''''

"At present, we have plenty of ``keep quiet'', but not enough freedom talk."

"We are failing to keep up with the influx of free software users, failing to teach people about freedom and our community as fast as they enter it."

"We have to say, ``It's free software and it gives you freedom!''--more and louder than ever before."

"The point that he missed is the point that ``open source'' was designed not to raise: the point that users deserve freedom."

"If you feel that freedom and community are important for their own sake--not just for the convenience they bring--please join us in using the term ``free software''"

"We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy. We want to be heard, not hidden behind a different view."

From "Live and let license", cited as a recommended reference in the previous article :

"When you hear this term, don't think development methodology, or price, think liberty."

"Open source implies a development methodology that is shared by both. Free software implies a license designed to ensure the four freedoms noted above."

These quotes show a marked deemphasis on the practical, economic and business benefits of Free Software. If it doesn't pertain to freedom, GNU seems hesitant to talk about it.

I don't have a problem with GNU using morality as the basis of its arguments, but I do have a problem when they place that morality in a vacumn isolated from the rest of reality.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Except if you actually followed GCC development on Altivec, you would notice that an inordinate number of Altivec posts on the gcc mailing list come from one Aldy Hernandez whose address I won't repeat here but ends with a "redhat.com", which would lead me to believe that they are actually doing some of the work.

Isn't this just some marketing hype for RedHat (nee cygnus) just taking the patches already incorporated into Apple's GCC, and putting them into their commercial GCC release?

The proof is in the pudding. If Cygnus folks weren't pulling our weight, would the other GCC developers have wanted to join us in launching egcs?

Yeah, not like there are any other examples of open source software based on proprietry software.

tlhf

xxx

Also, your linked article talks about a compiler which compiles itself. IE, GCC recognising GCC. Having GCC regocnise BCC, VC++, et al would be insanly difficult. Even more so in this case as Mono is being released after the Microsoft compiler.

Yeah, not like there are any other examples of open source software based on proprietry software.

tlhf

xxx

Also, your linked article talks about a compiler which compiles itself. IE, GCC recognising GCC. Having GCC regocnise BCC, VC++, et al would be insanly difficult. Even more so in this case as Mono is being released after the Microsoft compiler.

So, you should download the patched zlib, but you should also email the glibc maintainers and demand that they implement a sane, error-checking malloc()/free() system. Linux's current allocation model is a disaster waiting to happen.

I have this network at home which I administer like a tyrant: only programs that I approve will be installed.

Please look here underAdministrative Fascist.

Seeing that you have to talk to the redhat sales team for a contract, I imagine it's pricey.

What's there for a UNIX hacker not to love?

The lack of source code and the lack of community-driven development. The source you mention is Darwin, not the source for Mac OS X, and besides, it's not really Free anyway..

If someone who doesn't know shit about computers asks me what computer they should buy, I'd happily recommend them a Mac with OS X; for a 'Unix hacker' OS X really is not the operating system to go for.

I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...

I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music and software, and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.

Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.

As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion.

But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...

I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin brought on by open source software and the dot com bust. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I will be friendly, kind, and generous to my fellow humans, no matter which operating system they use. I am now slowly regaining my friends, and last weekend I actually got invited to a party - my first party! Perhaps this weekend I will ask a cute girl out on a date. Since I have cleaned myself up and changed my attitude, I have noticed a few girls giving me flirty looks around campus. I'm so excited about my new life!

Please, Fellow Readers of Slashdot, I implore you to look at what you have become. Although it will be long and difficult, you too can change. I have faith in that. You can start by saying this with me - "Microsoft is not evil, Linux is not good for the desktop." Repeat that every time you feel yourself slipping. Together, we can right this horrible wrong.

Thank You.

I wish GNUStep was "there"

It already is there, but a few of the more advanced GUI features aren't, and Display GhostScript is still a bit slow. If you want more, put your money where your mouth is.

non-commercial licenses (ie, Mono)

For God's sake would you all please stop referring to non free / closed source software as `commercial'? Not only is it simply incorrect there are many Open Source / Free apps produced for commercial benefit (eg, Zope) and many non-commercial apps with non Open Source licensing (eg, much Windows `freeware').

Why is it that people (not referring to the person I'm replying to, just Slashdot in general) claim they care about Free Software so much and have never read The Free Software Foundations list of words to avoid. I imagine the OSI would shaare this vview.

Long live commercial software, as long as its Open Source!

It would be even more amusing to harness the collective power of the open source community to simplify this task. Create an online repository for text, divided up and numbered by page. Have 50 or so people buy the ebook, and let them "sign up" for 10 pages each. Their responsibility would be to copy their assigned pages into plain text, then upload the result to the repository. With a coordinated effort like this, an entire ebook could be replicated in under 30 minutes :)

Uh oh, I'd better shut up before they arrest me for discussing a circumvention method...

This reminds me the Copyrighting fire by Ian Clarke:

I was in the pub last night, and a guy asked me for a light for his cigarette. I suddenly realised that there was a demand here and money to be made, and so I agreed to light his cigarette for 10 pence, but I didn't actually give him a light, I sold him a license to burn his cigarette. My fire-license restricted him from giving the light to anybody else, after all, that fire was my property. He was drunk, and dismissing me as a loony, but accepted my fire (and by implication the licence which governed its use) anyway. Of course in a matter of minutes I noticed a friend of his asking him for a light and to my outrage he gave his cigarette to his friend and pirated my fire! I was furious, I started to make my way over to that side of the bar but to my added horror his friend then started to light other people's cigarettes left, right, and centre! Before long that whole side of the bar was enjoying MY fire without paying me anything. Enraged I went from person to person grabbing their cigarettes from their hands, throwing them to the ground, and stamping on them. Strangely the door staff exhibited no respect for my property rights as they threw me out the door.

It would be even more amusing to harness the collective power of the open source community to simplify this task. Create an online repository for text, divided up and numbered by page. Have 50 or so people buy the ebook, and let them "sign up" for 10 pages each. Their responsibility would be to copy their assigned pages into plain text, then upload the result to the repository. With a coordinated effort like this, an entire ebook could be replicated in under 30 minutes :)

Uh oh, I'd better shut up before they arrest me for discussing a circumvention method...

This reminds me the Copyrighting fire by Ian Clarke:

I was in the pub last night, and a guy asked me for a light for his cigarette. I suddenly realised that there was a demand here and money to be made, and so I agreed to light his cigarette for 10 pence, but I didn't actually give him a light, I sold him a license to burn his cigarette. My fire-license restricted him from giving the light to anybody else, after all, that fire was my property. He was drunk, and dismissing me as a loony, but accepted my fire (and by implication the licence which governed its use) anyway. Of course in a matter of minutes I noticed a friend of his asking him for a light and to my outrage he gave his cigarette to his friend and pirated my fire! I was furious, I started to make my way over to that side of the bar but to my added horror his friend then started to light other people's cigarettes left, right, and centre! Before long that whole side of the bar was enjoying MY fire without paying me anything. Enraged I went from person to person grabbing their cigarettes from their hands, throwing them to the ground, and stamping on them. Strangely the door staff exhibited no respect for my property rights as they threw me out the door.

It would be even more amusing to harness the collective power of the open source community to simplify this task. Create an online repository for text, divided up and numbered by page. Have 50 or so people buy the ebook, and let them "sign up" for 10 pages each. Their responsibility would be to copy their assigned pages into plain text, then upload the result to the repository. With a coordinated effort like this, an entire ebook could be replicated in under 30 minutes :)

Uh oh, I'd better shut up before they arrest me for discussing a circumvention method...

This reminds me the Copyrighting fire by Ian Clarke:

I was in the pub last night, and a guy asked me for a light for his cigarette. I suddenly realised that there was a demand here and money to be made, and so I agreed to light his cigarette for 10 pence, but I didn't actually give him a light, I sold him a license to burn his cigarette. My fire-license restricted him from giving the light to anybody else, after all, that fire was my property. He was drunk, and dismissing me as a loony, but accepted my fire (and by implication the licence which governed its use) anyway. Of course in a matter of minutes I noticed a friend of his asking him for a light and to my outrage he gave his cigarette to his friend and pirated my fire! I was furious, I started to make my way over to that side of the bar but to my added horror his friend then started to light other people's cigarettes left, right, and centre! Before long that whole side of the bar was enjoying MY fire without paying me anything. Enraged I went from person to person grabbing their cigarettes from their hands, throwing them to the ground, and stamping on them. Strangely the door staff exhibited no respect for my property rights as they threw me out the door.

Is Mac OS X a Threat to Linux?

In short, yes! On March 24, Apple Computer, Inc. released its next-generation operating system, Mac OS X (the "X" is pronounced as "ten," for the version number of the operating system) to Macintosh addicts around the world. While this isn't such a big deal to some, others view it as a new beginning that could squash all thoughts of a desktop Linux for the general public.

What's this, "Apple out-maneuvering Linux?" you say? Well, maybe not as a server platform for the immediate future, but just think about this for a second: Would it be possible for Apple to deflate the hopes and dreams of developers worldwide of bringing Linux to the desktop? The short answer to this is yes, but it's more complicated than that.

Aside from the fact that an apple is a fruit and a penguin is a flightless waterfowl, there used to be a big difference between the Apple Macintosh operating system and Linux. Apple had a nice GUI; Linux did not. Linux had a command line; Mac OS did not. Linux is a multitasking OS that supports multiple processors; Mac OS is not. Linux runs on just about anything these days; the Mac OS runs on, well, Apple equipment. Linux is free (well, sort of, depending on your method of install); Mac OS X will set you back $129.

So, the lines were pretty clear about the differences between Linux and Mac OS. But lately, that clarity has been blurred as Apple rolls out Mac OS X to the public. The new Mac OS now has preemptive multitasking and support for up to two processors, which is still a far cry from Linux's support for up to 16 processors, but it's a move in the right direction.

Traditionally, the only control Apple users had over their system was via the Control Panels and scripting system functions with AppleScript, MacPerl, or ResEdit. However, with Mac OS X's BSD base, Apple users were given something they've always wanted: a latch to take a peek into Apple's core.

At the core of Mac OS X is a kernel built on the Mach 3.0 kernel, BSD 4.4, and Darwin (Apple's open source kernel project), giving network and system administrators the ability to use Unix programs and add them to their Macintoshes. When combined, these components offer a rock-solid operating system that's hard to beat. (OK, I know that Mac OS X has its fair share of bugs, so no flames, please.)

One of the advantages of Mac OS X is that it now offers Macintosh users with a command line on top of a slick, stable GUI, known as Aqua. With OS X's BSD core, Macintosh users will now be able to use GNU software. This means they will be able to run tools like Emacs, vi, Apache, and even XFree86 and the GIMP (something that Adobe Systems should fear). If you're looking for a place to download ports of GNU tools that run under Mac OS X, you should visit the GNU-Darwin Project on SourceForge.

One of the downsides of OS X is that it requires you to have a native G3 or G4 processor. This means you have to be running a G3 Mac, an iMac or iBook, a PowerBook G3 or better, or any of the G4 models and above. So, if you have an older 604 PowerPC-based Mac, you can't run OS X (that is, unless upgrade manufacturers, such as Sonnet Technologies release updates to their processor software). For now, though, if you want to run OS X your best bet is to run it on native hardware.

One group that stands to lose a chunk of the market is the Mac-based Linux distributions, such as MkLinux, LinuxPPC, or Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) from Terra Soft Solutions. Up to now, these were your best options for running Linux on the Mac, with LinuxPPC and YDL leading the pack. But OS X changes this landscape significantly. The downside to running Linux on your Mac in a dual-boot configuration (as with Windows) is that if you want to access any of your Mac apps, you had to either reboot, or install and run Mac-On-Linux. Neither option is ideal, but now OS X allows you to work in the command line, and run your Mac apps right along with them--no rebooting required.

As much as I oppose the idea of DRM, I believe it's the only barrier in the way of releasing more information in digital form. Sure, some may say e-books and the like will never replace their dead-tree counterparts, but I can think of a few times in which they'd be useful.

Take technical books/papers - how cool would it be to just "grep" the doc for the keywords you want instead of hoping they are in the index? Remember a vague passage from a novel you read? Just enter what you recall and we'll search the text for you. The possibilities can be endless.

The only bad thing about this implementation is what happens when/if "MightyWords" goes away? How will I be able to unlock my e-docs if I need to move them to another computer and my software can't contact them? Or, perhaps I am trying to read it on a device temporarily without internet access - then what?

As much as I oppose the idea of DRM, I believe it's the only barrier in the way of releasing more information in digital form. Sure, some may say e-books and the like will never replace their dead-tree counterparts, but I can think of a few times in which they'd be useful.

Take technical books/papers - how cool would it be to just "grep" the doc for the keywords you want instead of hoping they are in the index? Remember a vague passage from a novel you read? Just enter what you recall and we'll search the text for you. The possibilities can be endless.

The only bad thing about this implementation is what happens when/if "MightyWords" goes away? How will I be able to unlock my e-docs if I need to move them to another computer and my software can't contact them? Or, perhaps I am trying to read it on a device temporarily without internet access - then what?

DRM is inherently user-unfriendly, because it exists to prevent the user from doing some things.

By the way, have you noticed the opposite meaning of words in such terms like copy-"protection" or digital "rights" management, etc.? Does it remind you something? Like the Ministry of Truth? Yes, I linked to Adobe eBook version of George Orwell's 1984, how ironic... "THIS TITLE IS NOT TEXT-TO-SPEECH COMPATIBLE"

To be more optimistic, I'm just reading "Secure Programming for Linux and Unix", a great book released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Fortunately, not everyone is a copy-"protection" freak yet.

It was said in another context, about other kind of digital object:

"Owners use smear words such as 'piracy' and 'theft', as well as expert terminology such as 'intellectual property' and 'damage', to suggest a certain line of thinking to the public---a simplistic analogy between programs and physical objects.

Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about whether it is right to take an object away from someone else. They don't directly apply to making a copy of something. But the owners ask us to apply them anyway."

Read the whole text

Actually, I believe the word "thief" is too much prone to libel. "Pirate", being not in any dictionary acception what someone who copies a song or a software is, helps reducing this risk while conveing the message of someone who will board the poor record company, rape its women, kill its men, sell its children as slaves and take away all its treasures.

The problem is that these executive and marketing types are easily confused. Sometimes in their small money counting brains the analogies get blurred and they start to believe the metaphor is real.

• Splint (lclint) provides for bounds checking
• bounds checking and other extensions for gcc

There is certainly a subset of users using Linux, developing interesting applications, and whatnot, but they are reportedly a sad minority.

On the other hand, hope can be found in the relative poverty of respectable organizations in China - they can't really afford Microsoft software, and are therefore more likely to look at free software for open, legitimate purposes.

On the gripping hand...But I ramble.

There is certainly a subset of users using Linux, developing interesting applications, and whatnot, but they are reportedly a sad minority.

On the other hand, hope can be found in the relative poverty of respectable organizations in China - they can't really afford Microsoft software, and are therefore more likely to look at free software for open, legitimate purposes.

On the gripping hand...But I ramble.

For example, the discovery of Santa's flying reindeer would be a big step on the road to understanding the physics of his journey, akin in chemistry to discovering the transuranic series, and would have much more impact than finding yet another sign of a stressed creator. For example, the CIA would be absolutely fascinated to get a handle one someone who ``knows when you've been naughty''.

``But seriously folks,'' add to this the 250,000+ species known from fossils and it should be clear that at least every 8th-to-80th transitional form should have shown up in the fossil record we've exhumed so far (BTW, the above ref cites TL Erwin in The Tropical Forest Canopy within Biodiversity, 1988, NAP (WA DC) for a generous ceiling of 30 million species, mostly insects). If we had equal parts transitional and stable species (really, we need many times that because most attempted changes would fail according to any reasonable theory), for example, there should be an absolute scratching minimum of about 2,000 known transitional species discovered in the fossil record by now.

While we're having fun, take DM Raup's figure of 99.9% ( Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? , 1991, WW Norton NY - see this too for commentary and a ceiling of 40M species) extinct species, there should be at least 20 transitional species alive today, and using the 10-30 million species range vs 2 million known, we should have found somewhere between 1 and 4 of those by now.

Maybe one of those is Santa's reindeer? Which, BTW, are probably female...

yo Jamie, ever heard of wget?

This is not possible. Once the author releases source code under the GPL, everyone automatically gets a license to use that code (unless they violated the GPL).

From the GPL FAQ:

The GPL says that modified versions, if released, must be "licensed ... to all third parties." Who are these third parties?
Section 2 says that modified versions you distribute must be licensed to all third parties under the GPL. "All third parties" means absolutely everyone--but this does not require you to *do* anything physically for them. It only means they have a license from you, under the GPL, for your version.

For some good info on how GPL enforcement is usually done by the FSF, read this article.

'Look, at how many people all over the world are pressuring me to enforce the GPL in court, just to prove I can. I really need to make an example of someone. Would you like to volunteer?' - Professor Eben Moglen - FSF General Counsel

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

You do not recall correctly, see the GPL.

However, note this from the GPL: The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.

If the company intends to keep a non-obfuscated version, this would be "the preferred form", and their lawyer is dead wrong...

a well written C program can be as portible as Java.

Not if you want to use advanced OS features such as sockets or a GUI and the most common workstation operating system on the most common consumer workstation doesn't support POSIX well, let alone X11. Or are you talking about emulating POSIX on a winbox (that is, the opposite of WINE)?

Java code is not native

Bull. GCJ can compile Java language source code to a native binary using the same code generator G++ uses. Granted, you do lose a bit of performance to the GC thread.

As usual, this "problem" can be solved by actually reading the damn GPL:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.

Obfuscated code does not qualify as the "preferred" form; you can't give one version away and hold an unobfuscated version for your own use. This is a clear GPL violation.

Have you been following the MySQL AB case at all? Yes, it is a legal, binding contract like any software license agreement. The Free Software Foundation didn't just write it up on a whim, they put a lot of thought and legal expertise into it. Until now, most challenges to the GPL have been settled out of court because the Free Software Foundation prefers cooperation over lawsuits to encourage compliance, they're not about punitive damages, etc.