Re: SableVM/Kaffe pissing contest

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> wrote:
> Walter Landry wrote:
> > Suppose I have a program Foo which uses either GNU readline.  I can
> > compile Foo against GNU readline (but not link it), and distribute the
> > result.  I can also distribute GNU readline separately.  But I can not
> > distribute foo and GNU readline together.  How is this different from
> > your case?
> 
> Hold on a second.  You seem to be arguing against the established
> interpretation of the GPL here: at least according to the FSF, you may
> not distribute the GPL-incompatible Foo compiled against GNU readline,
> linked or not.

That really depends on whether the parts of GNU readline that end up
incorporated into program Foo are large enough to be copyrightable.
Almost certainly, having just a reference to a function signature such
as

  char * complete(char *fragment);

would not be enough.  For the purposes of this discussion, let us
assume that the header is suitably small.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu