On Sun, Dec 07, 2003 at 09:35:15AM -0700, Joel Baker wrote: > On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 03:25:01PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: > > > > If the code was licensed under something that was not GPL compliant, > > the issue is less clear. I'd guess that it is probably a no for most > > libraries, save ones with well defined interfaces, like POSIX or the > > STD C. But I could be swayed either way, frankly. It's much easier to > > judge these things when you're looking at the code, and even then it's > > still quite possible that you could find enough of an issue to enter > > litigation. > > And people wonder why they call it the Gnu Public Virus... Because people keep talking nonsense about it. > 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. So why are you even suggesting it? It's not just silly, it's wrong. Taking the plugin and the core application and creating a derived work from the two of them is what causes the result to become a derived work of the two of them. A case where this is a reasonable interpretation is putting them both into a .deb and shipping them in a fashion that always uses the plugin (for example, by adding a NEEDED entry to the application binary to load the plugin; we conventionally call this "linking"). At the other end of the scale, burning each component onto a CD and putting them in a bag is fairly clearly not a derived work. Anything between these two is probably unclear and a court could go either way. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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