Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[Arnoud Engelfriet <galactus@stack.nl>]

M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
> Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> writes:
> >> 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?
> >
> > No. But a vendor could get into trouble if they shipped both.
> 
> How's that?  The GPL allows distribution together with non-GPL works,
> as long as the non-GPL things are not derived from anything GPL'd.  In
> my opinion, placing two shared objects in the same tar file doesn't
> make one a derived work of the other.  Would it make a difference if
> the offending (to rms) plugins were distributed separately?

The FSF seems of the opinion that a program that uses a
library is a derivative work of the library, because
at runtime the two are combined.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL

It seems logical that they are of the same opinion regarding
plugins. 
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem
seems to confirm this. Eben Moglen's answer to question 2 in
this Slashdot interview seems to confirm this.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/03/02/20/1544245.shtml?tid=117&tid=123

Arnoud

-- 
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/