Re: [GPL] No linking with proprietary programs: where?
On Tue, Mar 14, 2000 at 03:30:40PM +0100, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> On Tuesday 14 March 2000, at 8 h 54, the keyboard of SCOTT FENTON
> <sj12fn@home.com> wrote:
>
> > Section 2b is the viral clause and it reads as follows:
> > You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or
> > in part contains or is derived from the
> > Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to
> > all third parties under the terms of this License.
>
> It is not very clear from Section 2b that linking makes a program GPL-infected, and dynamic linking too (see the rms/Torvalds discussion about binary modules in the Linux kernel) but not popen() or system() (see the discussion about the apt tool by Corel which popens dpkg).
Let's not be silly here. Whether or not dynamicly linking with Qt causes a
GPL incompatibility is a nonissue because using the Qt include files causes
Qt code to be copied verbatim into the body your program's source code and
thus makes those parts of Qt a part of your program. I personally consider
dynamic linking use, and as we all know, use is beyond the scope of the GPL.
But when bits of _executable C code_ in the form of macros from the Qt
include files are copied into your program it's more than just use - it
constitutes distribution as well. Those who aren't convinced should check
out some of the macros in the Qt include files for themselves.
That said, I think we can all pretty well agree that copying code verbatim
from or into the body of a program's source code is covered by the GPL and
that this discussion can safely end here. I'm tired of hearing about it.
--
Brian Ristuccia
brianr@osiris.978.org
bristucc@nortelnetworks.com
bristucc@cs.uml.edu
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