Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian
Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> writes:
>> I am working on a piece of free software that makes extensive use of
>> plugins, i.e. shared objects dynamically loaded at runtime. Many of
>> these plugins are linked with third-party libraries. The licenses of
>> those libraries vary, including at least GPL, LGPL and X11. Now I'm
>> trying to work out what choices of license for my program would allow
>> distribution of binaries, and also what would be DFSG-free. I'd
>> appreciate some comments about these matters.
>
> If you choose any of those licenses (GPL, LGPL, X11), you should be
> fine. There is no problem using those plugins with your program. So
> the question comes down to which one you prefer for your own work.
OK, say I use the X11 license. Now suppose someone installs a closed
source plugin. Suppose it also happens that this same user has
installed some GPL plugin. Both plugins would be allowed separately,
right? When the user runs the program, it will load both plugins.
Would this in some magical way make the plugins derived works of each
other, thus violating the GPL? Assume that the author of the closed
source plugin doesn't have any GPL'd plugins.
> However, if there are other plugins distributed with GPL-incompatible
> licenses (e.g. something that links to OpenSSL), then it gets more
> complicated.
Hmm, now that I look closer, one plugin uses OpenSSL. How much
trouble does that create?
--
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se
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