Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård)]

Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> writes:

> And people wonder why they call it the Gnu Public Virus...
>
> I mean, I can understand not wanting people to use GNU Readline as part of
> a GPL-incompatible app unless it in no way actually depends on it being
> GNU Readline, rather than something else with the same API. But claiming
> that a GPLed *plugin* created *after* a program with a defined plugin
> API, and after another plugin with a GPL-incompatible license, causes the
> distribution of a package of "program plus some plugins that work with it"
> to become a derived work, is just frigging silly.

Finally someone who shares my views.

> If it were me, I'd put the GPL plugins in ghetto-land, and not the others;
> they're the ones that aren't playing nicely with the rest of the world, in
> this case, so they should be the ones ostracized (program,
> Recommends program-plugins, Suggests program-plugins-gpl).

I'm considering splitting the package into program-free and
program-gpl, just to annoy those who'd be annoyed by such a naming.

> This gets back into the issue over APIs and whether using GPLed code to
> satisfy those APIs creates a derived work, except sort of in reverse.
> Something which the FSF, of course, has a very broad opinion on, with which
> many people disagree, but if you want to avoid having it decided in court,
> play it safe.

Maybe it would be a good thing if someone with lots of cash got the
matter tried in court, and got the dynamic linking problem solved,
once and for all.

I have a suspicion that most people that publish their programs under
the GPL use the GPL only because it's the license they've heard of the
most, without really considering all the implications.  I'd like to
see a bit more of a discussion on these matters, so people would
realize that the GPL perhaps isn't as "free" as it's advocates want it
to look like.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se