Re: Bug reports of DFSG violations are tagged 'lenny-ignore'?
On Thu, 2008-10-23 at 22:08 +0200, Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
>
> The FSF seems to disagree on this[1]:
>
> Can I release a non-free program that's designed to load a GPL-covered
> plug-in?
>
> It depends on how the program invokes its plug-ins. For instance, if
> the program uses only simple fork and exec to invoke and communicate
> with plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the
> license of the plug-in makes no requirements about the main program.
>
> The general idea seems to be that (at least the FSF) only linked modules
> are considered as a "single program" and only in this case all parts
> have to be GPL-compatible (not necessarily released under the GPL
> itself).
This is (or when the text was originally written), about programs *as
released by the FSF*, but not about the GPL in general. It may be that
the older text is now getting used in a broader context. I do not know
if this represents a change in the FSF's position.
Thomas
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