"Nicholas R. Markham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:23:34 -0500, Barry Margolin wrote: > >> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Kastrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> wrote: >> >>> It all depends on what "part of a larger package means" whether your >>> program and the package form an aggregation or an inseparable whole. If >>> they are inseparable, but your program can work without the GSL even >>> when used as a part in the whole, you probably can just keep the GSL >>> out and don't distribute a complete combination of everything. >> >> Since he said that he's considering distributing the program on its own >> without the rest of the package, I think it's pretty clear that his >> program can be used independently of the package. > > The rest of the package does not, strictly speaking, depend on the program > I'm considering GPLing; it could certainly be used without that program. > However, I'm not sure I could make the reverse claim, that the program > could be used without the rest of the package. Nothing would prevent it > from compiling or running, but since it uses as input files that are > output by some of the other programs, it wouldn't be able to do much. > > Am I correct in thinking that it's really the first part that > matters anyway? If the package depended on the program and the > program depended on the GSL, then the package would depend on the > GSL and have to be GPLed. But, the fact that the program depends > both on the GSL and on the rest of the package doesn't matter, does > it? (Dependence is transitive but not symmetric, I guess.)
It really sounds as if the whole situation would be pretty much unproblematic. I can't see that the rest of the package could be called a derivative work of the GPLed part in any sense of the word. The other way round is quite different, but that's a problem of the other program's licences then. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum _______________________________________________ Gnu-misc-discuss mailing list Gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss