Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>]

mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård) writes:

> Then read the section "Can I use the GPL for a plug-in for a non-free
> program?" in the GPL FAQ:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPluginsInNF
> If there are any other interpretations of that section, please
> enlighten me.

When we see a plugin written under the GPL for a GPL-incompatible work,
we have two choices:

- Assume the author of the plugin was confused, and that the plugin
  isn't even distributable, or
- Assume that the author intends that the plugin have an implicit
  exception for the gpl-incompatible work.

We generally go with the latter, simply because it makes more sense.
But that does have implications, namely that the plugin isn't actually
under the GPL, but under a sort of GPL+exception hybrid license.  Which,
in turn, means that it's not really GPL compatible -- GPL code from
other sources and other authors can not be used with this "GPL" plugin.

That may (or may not) be what Steve Langasek was thinking.


But as others have said, this is not a clear-cut area at all.  When we
talk about whether it is or is not a problem we're theorizing on what a
judge would decide were the case presented in court.  And that's risky
business.  The important thing for us, as programmers, to keep in mind
is that the intentions and thinking of the people involved is likely to
be the deciding factor, not technical details of implementation.  In
fact, things like whether there's a well-defined interface are generally
only relevant because they suggest that the author of the code
*intended* the work to be separate from the plugins.

But like most folks here, IANAL, so YMMV.

-- 
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333  9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03