On 3/25/2010 10:05 AM, David Kastrup wrote:
Licenses covering a work "as a whole" are hard to press
> when the material they cover is functionally a drop-in > replacement of existing non-free libraries. That makes > "mere aggregation" a really good defense.
This is completely wrong. The GPL applies to work as a whole only when the GPL-covered work is made part of a combined work and that combined work is copied and distributed. Your statement sounds as if you continue to believe incorrectly that a program which uses a dynamically linked library covered by the GPL is subject to the GPL even when it is copied and distributed without that library. That is not so. Copyright law is about copying, and when a GPL-covered work is not being copied and distributed, the GPL cannot come into play. What the program does when it runs is not relevant for falling under the GPL because the GPL does not restrict running covered works. Similarly, mere aggregation is irrelevant to libraries which are statically linked into programs. Such a combined work is not a mere aggregation of the library and the other components. Mere aggregation refers to including a covered work on a medium of distribution along with other works. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss