Re: does r-cran-afex violate the GPL?
On 3/10/2015 10:27 am, Santiago Vila wrote:
> The way I see it, your package just uses other R packages, but it's
> not a derived work of them.
yeah, but by the same logic, i could just "use" a GPL .dll or .so from
my proprietary application, or just include/"use" a bunch of GPL
functions in my proprietary software.
the FAQ:
"If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are
definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run
linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means
combining them into one program.
By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication
mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are
used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But
if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging
complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider
the two parts as combined into a larger program."
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation
it seems to me that calling functions (internal data structures?)
belongs to the former category, rather than the latter.
thoughts?
jonathon
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