Mark Rafn said: > On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Steve Langasek wrote: >> So the requirement here is that if the RPC service is part >> of the source code, you MUST ship the server, or not ship anything at >> all. > > Huh? I'm missing that paragraph in my copy of GPLv2. You can't ship > the server and the client without providing source to the server, but > you can ship the client by itself, even if it's not so useful without > the server.
The paragraph above is the result of the logic: 1. linking -> combined work 2. dynamic linking -> linking 3. dynamic linking over network (RPC) -> dynamic linking 4. network service -> dynamic linking over network "Therefore", network service -> combined work. The GPL FAQ appears to both contradict and support point 4: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation, since the network service would probably be implemented over sockets, but is "exchanging complex internal data structures" > The paragraph after section 2c seems to say that if the client can > reasonably be considered a seperate work (and almost any client can be > IMO), the GPL only affects both sections (client and server) if they are > distributed as part of a whole. > > Similarly, I believe it's allowed to distribute a GPL program that can > use a GPL-incompatible library at runtime, and to use that program. You > just can't distribute the GPL program and the library together. Your belief appears to differ from the FSF's interpretation of the GPL, according to http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL --Joe