:      Will the GNU C++ allow commerical applications to be written an
: executed using this compiler?  A co-worker remembers that this was brought
: up in the past but a corporation (ie. Northern Telecom) would violate the
: licensing agreement using the GNU compiler to write applications.
 
The problem with GNU "copyleft" was not with using the compiler, but
with using the accompanying library "libg++".  Essentially, if you used
GNU code in your app (including library code from libg++) then your
source code must be made available too.  Just using the GNU compiler
does *NOT* make your source code subject to this restriction.  BTW,
this may have changed since I investigated this a couple of years ago.