Re: The GPL and you
O Domingo, 31 de Agosto de 2003 ás 13:51:13 -0700, Daniel Isacc Walker escribía:
[...]
> under the GPL . What this means is that my software is automatically GPL'd
> even though it has no GPL'd source in it. The GPL doesn't distinguish
[...]
> incorporated directly into PHP that means that PHP automatically becomes
> GPL'd. Even if I made some kind of external module for PHP, PHP would
No; that's a common misunderstanding of how the GPL's copyleft works.
Linking a work with a GPL-licensed work does not make the first work
GPL-licensed. What it really means is that the combination of both works, if
it is distributed, it must be under the terms of both licenses
simultaneously (each work retains its original license, but the
combination...).
Now, the GPL has a clause that says "you may not impose further
restrictions than those imposed by this license" (my wording), so if the
other work's license has any restrictions not in the GPL, the resulting
license is internally inconsistent, so per the GPL, you cannot distribute
the resulting work at all.
Note how I wrote about distribution. Use is no problem, since the GPL
universally allows use (the only restrictions would be those imposed by the
other work's license).
A common "trick" which is used to distribute such undistributable combined
works consists in distributing the components separately and leaving to the
user the task of combining them.
--
Tarrío
(Compostela)
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