I assume they are using GNU libc as the C library for their compiler. If you read/usr/include/libio.h you will discover the following text:
/* Copyright (C) 1991,92,93,94,95,97,98,99 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This file is part of the GNU IO Library. Written by Per Bothner . This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. [---standard GPL stuff snipped-----] As a special exception, if you link this library with files compiled with a GNU compiler to produce an executable, this does not cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. */
What this means is that if you compile an app with the Compaq compiler, your app is instantly covered by the GPL!!! You can compile non GPLed code with a GNU compiler and use glibc, but you can't compile non-GPLed code with glibc and a non-GNU compiler (such as Compaq's one).
This is why GPL'd libraried are bad, bad, bad (despite RMSs opinions to the contrary).
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What this means is that if you compile an app with the Compaq compiler, your app is instantly covered by the GPL!!! You can compile non GPLed code with a GNU compiler and use glibc, but you can't compile non-GPLed code with glibc and a non-GNU compiler (such as Compaq's one).
This is why GPL'd libraried are bad, bad, bad (despite RMSs opinions to the contrary).