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Re: gnome-vfs daemon, GPL and LGPL



On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 12:00:46PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:

> I've noticed that the gnome-vfs2 source package includes some GPL
> source files. These are the sources of gnome-vfs-daemon. As I
> understand it, the daemon is not essential for the gnome-vfs
> functionality, but it is spawned when some operations are requested.

> To what level do you think this makes the dependent applications
> become subject to the GPL? Is a non-GPL-compatible application
> making use of gnome-vfs violating the license?

According to my understanding, if the interface between the daemon
and what spawns it is tight (undocumented suggests tight), then the
GPLness of the daemon taints the library, which taints applications
that link against it.

On the other hand, if the daemon is only something along the lines of
gnome-pty-helper, it wouldn't taint the library.

-- 
Lionel



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