On Fri, Mar 14, 2003 at 10:42:49AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > > So far, I'm just saying that I think requiring release of server if an RPC > > call is made from a Free work is a "Bad Thing" on general principles. > That's not possible. If I write a server, and put it up one the web, > there's no law in the world that'll force me to release the source > code merely because someone happens to access it with some peculiarly > licensed software. That's not how the GPL works; the requirements of the GPL go the other direction -- if you can't distribute all the source with the binaries, you're not allowed to distribute the binaries at all. So in the RPC case, if a remote RPC service is part of the program, and you can't distribute the source to the RPC service, you can't distribute any client binaries. > We can change the circumstances though, so that either: > * I'm distributing copies of peculiarly licensed clients written > by others, having written the server; and am thus forced to > release the server's source too Yes, this case seems particularly germane to the RPC question, and is likely to be seen as an advantage to copyleftists. The flipside is that it would prevent third parties (including us) from distributing binaries for such copyleft clients that have a dependency on an RPC service we can't distribute. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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