On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 09:48:11AM +1000, Brian May wrote: > Hello, > > Lets say I am writing a frontend (call it X), to a GPL package > (eg. gnupg), and want to be a prick and disallow commercial use. This > runs gnupg by forking and execing it and supplying STDIN while reading > STDOUT. > > Does the GPL allow this? im not sure, probably. > Now, say my front end requires a special feature that isn't > implemented in gnupg (it is specific to my application), so with my > application, I distribute a source code patch to gnupg that makes it > do the stuff I require. > > Does the GPL allow this? only if the patch is GPLed in its entirety. or well its a bit more complicated, if your not distributing gnupg with the patch your fine there, but if the patch is not GPLed it can't be used without violating the GPL. Some think you can get around this by making the user do all the patching, building and violating themselves in which case so long as they never distribute the result there probably isn't a problem, but this violates the spirit of the GPL and may not really be allowable anyway. regardless it would be a very obnoxious thing to do since even if one didn't have a problem with using the non-free X (thats confusing...) it would be a pain in the arse for them to do so since they either have to figure out how to build a local patched version of gnupg.deb, and do that every time there is an update, or give up debian packaging and install gnupg in /usr/local. both are rather annoying and inconvenient. it would be better for all to release the patch as GPL and get it merged upstream (assuming its useful for other things then this non-free program). > Now say one of the source files, eg. snprintf.o (or similar stuff) > required to build X, and this file is licensed, by other authors, > under the GPL. This file is only required where the OS doesn't provide > the function. > > The GPL doesn't allow this does it? nope. but the LGPL does. -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/
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