Re: GPL scripts with a GPL-incompatible interpreter

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> writes:

> On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 10:05:09AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> writes:
> > 
> > > Does the argument that a script is "just data" really hold water legally?
> > > I would think they are "just data" in the same sense that all binary
> > > executables are "just data" to a kernel; yet the vendors of proprietary
> > > Unices have always gone out of their way to make sure GPL software is not
> > > shipped together with their kernel, in order to take advantage of the
> > > GPL's "OS component" exception.
> 
> > That's exactly what the text says in fact, in qualifying the "just
> > data" statement.
> 
> I'm sorry, I'm not sure if your comments support or contradict my
> interpretation.  By "the text", do you mean the text of the GPL, or the
> text of the FAQ?  The GPL doesn't talk about data at all, and the only
> qualification in the FAQ is with reference to using GPL-incompatible
> bindings from a GPL script.

I mean the text of the FAQ.

> My concern is not with bindings (most PHP *bindings* seem to be
> GPL-compatible), but with the interpreter itself; I don't see anything in
> the GPL that states unequivocally that distributing a GPL script together
> with a GPL-incompatible interpreter is acceptable.  

Except that the authors of the GPL have said that this is the correct
intpretation *if* the interpreter is the ordinary kind of programming
language interpreter that we know of.