Re: does r-cran-afex violate the GPL?

[Jonathon Love <jon@thon.love>]

hi,

On 3/10/2015 12:04 am, Santiago Vila wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 02, 2015 at 09:34:10PM +0200, Jonathon Love wrote:
>> i'm talking with upstream about the r-cran-afex package, and it seems to
>> me that it violates the GPL, but upstream isn't convinced.
>>
>> afex is GPL >= 3, and it depends on (and calls functions from) R
>> packages which are GPL2-only.
>>
>> is this "textbook GPL violation"?
> 
> I don't think so. A system call to the kernel, for example, is
> considered to be "using" the kernel, and will not make your program to
> be GPL-2. Is this really different from that?
> 

but the kernel a special case, because it falls under the system library
exception (?)

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#SystemLibraryException

or from the GPL2 itself:

"However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or
binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of
the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable."

so the scenario you describe is the exception, rather than the rule.

makes sense?

jonathon

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