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Re: Mixture of Code unter GPL-2+ and UnRAR license compatible?



On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 22:47 +0100, Francesco Poli wrote:
> Since the unrar license is (non-free and) GPL-incompatible, it is my
> understanding that anyone who distributes the linked resulting library
> would violate the copyright of the authors of the GPLv2+'ed part.
> 
> In order to allow such a linking, the copyright holders of the GPLv2+'ed
> part can add an exception (that is to say, an additional permission),
> as explained in
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs
> 
> See also
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FSWithNFLibs

Thank you for your clarification and for the links, very useful.

> > Is it allowed to load such library into a GPLv2+
> > application (technically speaking it's linking again, in runtime)?
> 
> I think that this also requires an exception granted by the GPLv2+'ed
> application copyright holders, as above.
Understood (and that's explained in the FAQ too). What about other
plugins, dynamically linked to a GPLv2-with-exception application? Is it
possible to use pure GPLv2 plugin with it or does it need to be granted
an exception as well? There's only an application-to-plugin
relationship, no plugin-to-plugin calls.

I'm not copyright holder of all GPL2 sources linked to other plugins
(neither can request an exception either). Would the requirement to have
everything licensed under GPL2-with-exception prevent me to
distribute/run other plugins?


Also, will such exception allow to keep the DFSG designation on all
components except the non-free ones? 

Thanks,
--
Tomas Bzatek




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