----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Herborth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Georgios Petasis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 9:12 PM Subject: Re: GPL violation ?
> Georgios Petasis wrote: > > >>Including GPL'd code in a project as a shared library/DLL is just peachy; > >>GPL requires the end-user to be able to replace/upgrade the GPL'd hunk > >>without intervention. > > > > Are you sure the above is correct? I think that LGPL offers this ability. > > I think GPL says that the whole application that uses a GPL lib must be > > distributed under GPL as well. > > Nope, that's a common misperception that a lot of Open Source folks aren't > too keen to clear up, possibly because it suits their desire for all > software to be "free" (by their definition). > > Python isn't GPL'd and yet it links against a GPL'd library namely > libreadline. The only thing rms had to say was "please make the Python > license more compatible with the GPL", since it originally had a BSD-link > clause in it requiring you to give credit to the Python developers. That > has since disappeared, but it's still not under GPL. I still cannot understand :-) In this case, I really think that python will violate the GPL if they distribute a binary that uses readline :-) I think this is crearly stated at: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem You can include GPL software in a non-GPL application only if the GPL program is used as a separate application. If you link with it, you have to use GPL on the whole application and thats why libc is released under LGPL and not GPL. I find also relevant this: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCGPLPluginsInNF > > Here's a quote from the OpenOffice.org FAQ: "The LGPL has all of the > restrictions of the GPL except that you may use the code at compile-time > without the derivative work becoming a GPL work. This allows the use of the > code in proprietary works." Yes, but I think that the FSF FAQ may be more accurate than open office FAQ :-) > > Using headers doesn't count as "making a derivative work", and the consensus > is that using a shared library is just like loading a program into an OS at > runtime (and on some operating systems, it's exactly the same process > internally). Nobody says Solaris has to be GPL'd because it can run EMACS, > and nobody can say an application needs to be GPL'd because it has a GPL'd > shared library associated with it. I think you are confusing the fact that GPL allows interaction with non-GPL stuff only when the two things can be viewed as two separate programs. An editor is a separate program than the os, but linking a library makes a single program in most situations... George -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/