On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 01:04:08PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote: > I am specifically addressing the case where: [...] I'm afraid I cannot come up with very much to add to your analysis. I am uncomfortable with some of the ramifications but I am also uncomfortable with totally declawing the GNU GPL by adopting and interpretation of it that would let people wrapper and language-bind their way out of the copyleft commons. > > Is it any help to cite the libreadline/libeditline case? Readline is a > > GPLed library authored by the FSF. Editline is a BSD-licensed clone > > (with a limited feature set) developed by people who weren't happy with > > Readline's licensing. > > I think it's an interesting case to consider because of the question of > whether an interface is copyrightable, but I think that discussion is > best left for another thread. In any case, I believe the "generic > interface" defense is only applicable when the distributor is not > distributing a combination that requires selecting one specific > implementation as the default. I am not sure the U.S. courts agree.[1][2] Also worthy of note are the opinions of RMS himself[3]. However, it's possible that RMS feels that only visual interfaces should not be protectable by copyright, and programming interfaces should be. > To restate: If distributing a statically-linked binary that combines a > GPL library with GPL-incompatible code is a violation of the GPL, then > shipping *any other combination of files* which constitute a program > that, when run, result in a corresponding intermingling of GPL and > GPL-incompatible code in memory is also a violation of the GPL. You > cannot circumvent the GPL's requirements on source code by shipping your > combined work in the form of a GPLed library and a GPL-incompatible > program; nor can you circumvent them by writing (or reusing) a GPL > interpreter and shipping it together with the GPLed library and your > GPL-incompatible script (bytecode). (I'm going to ignore the much > hairier RPC question for the moment. :) > > > Because the two libraries are interface-compatible, the FSF is not in a > > position to forbid people from distributing code that "links" against > > libreadline if that code is not licensed GPL-compatibly, because the > > code could be linked against libeditline instead.[1] > > Yes, but they are in a position to forbid distributing such code > together with readline itself. I hate to say this because I love my bright-line tests, but I think intent matters here. Shipping "such code together with readline itself", and nothing else, should be distinguishable from what Debian does, which is ship "such code", "readline itself", a clone or two of readline, and a whole boatload of other stuff that has nothing to do with any of the above. [1] Apple Computer v. Microsoft Corp., 35 F.3d 1435, 1446-47 (9th Cir. 1994) [2] Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int'l, 49 F.3d 807, 815 (1st Cir. 1995). [3] http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/demo.final.release -- G. Branden Robinson | The only way to get rid of a Debian GNU/Linux | temptation is to yield to it. branden@debian.org | -- Oscar Wilde http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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