Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård)]

Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> writes:

>> 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?
>
> "Maybe".
>
> This now gets into the hazy realm where it's best not to go - a court
> could decide either way.
>
> The argument is, approximately, that by shipping the whole lot
> together you are creating a derived work that violates at least once
> of the licenses. Certainly you can concoct a case where this is
> plausible (wrap them all up in one .deb with a default configuration
> that uses both) - and it is not at all clear where to draw the
> line. There are legitimate arguments in both directions (the
> counter-argument is approximately "It's not derivation, it's
> collation").

I have a CD that contains lots of GPL stuff, as well as OpenSSL (it's
a Slackware CD).  I downloaded it as an iso file from some ftp
server.  Apparently, an iso9660 format filesystem containing tar files
of GPL and GPL incompatible software is allowed.  Where is the
fundamental difference if the format of the wrapper is changed from
iso9660 to tar, and the internal files are shared objects instead of
tar files?

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se