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Re: cdrtools



On Saturday 12 August 2006 02:47 am, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> Daniel Schepler <schepler@math.berkeley.edu> writes:
> > According to the GPL, section 0:
> >
> >   The act of running the Program is not restricted...
> >
> > And since dynamic linking is done at the time the program is run, this
> > would appear to me to be what applies.  In particular, it appears to me
> > that you could satisfy the GPL and still dynamically link against a
> > non-free library, and distribute both, by invoking the "mere aggregation"
> > clause of section 2.
>
> This does not mean that anything that happens when you run the program
> is not restricted.  For example, the act of running GNU cp and sed is
> not restricted, but that cann't possibly mean that the GPL gives you
> carte blanche to go ahead and violate the GPL through use of cp and
> sed.

I'm afraid I don't see what your point is, here.  Of course the GPL allowing 
me to use a GPL'd httpd to distribute non-free software doesn't automatically 
mean I would be blameless if I used it to distribute, say, a non-free program 
foo linked against libmad.  The point, I think, is that distributing such a 
thing as the non-free binary of foo along with a package of a shared libmad 
is essentially the same as distributing a binary with libmad linked in 
statically, which is clearly disallowed.  Both are just different ways of 
distributing the combined work of foo + libmad.
-- 
Daniel Schepler



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