On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 10:55:44PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 05:30:04PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > > If this code fragment were then added to a GPL'd program, and > > distributed, with the intention that people would run it and thus link > > it with rmi.bar.com's non-free code, in order to produce a program > > without source, then the result is that the GPL (as it stands *now*) > > is violated, just as much as if rmi.bar.com distributed an ordinary > > .so. > The argument is that "//rmi.bar.com/Bar" is a GPL'd program, and this > java application (under whatever license; say BSD) makes use of it. > Now, it seems clear that this application is, in fact, linking to Bar. > What's not clear is distribution: it seems that Bar is never actually > being distributed to the user of this application. Since the binary is > never distributed, the GPL's source requirements never kick in. Yes, I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the ASP loophole in terms of RPC services. And for the reasons stated, I think the costs of closing this hole are high enough that it should NOT be closed. I also think that the converse situation, a GPL client using a GPL-incompatible RPC service, is already adequately addressed by the GPLv2 (though some here disagree that it is addressed). -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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