"Wesley W. Terpstra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Good evening!
>
> I'm developing an error-correcting code library which works on a lot of data
> at once. Since the API is quite simple and the cost of process creation
> relatively insignificant, I would like to provide a command-line API.
>
> I feel this has several engineering advantages:
> 1) it's easier to debug and understand if you can interact with it
> 2) bugs in the library don't crash programs using it
> 3) multithreading can be used in the library and not the application
> ... and other more problem-specific benefits.
>
> To the point: I want this library to be released under the GPL, BUT ...
> Would the GPL still protect it?
>
> If someone writes a program that does: popen('my-api');
> does the GPL require that program to also be GPL?
> From the short answer I got on IRC it seemed the answer was: No!
That's correct. It's even in the GPL FAQ.
> What I am concerned about is the following scenario:
>
> Mr. John Wontshare writes a streaming multicast client.
> To deal with packet loss, he uses my error-correcting library.
> Without my library, Mr. Wontshare's client can't work at all.
> Mr. Wontshare's client represents only a small investment of effort and
> without having had access to my library, he could have never written it
