On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 02:25 +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > > > It is interesting that someone posting with an @gnu.org address claims > > > that dynamic linking of not GPLv2 compatible code into GPLv2 code was > > > not a copyright violation. > > > > No, I'm representing myself only. I don't think you represent all > > kernel developers when posting from the kernel.org address. > > I'm not using my @kernel.org address except for kernel issues and I'm > not using a company address in linux-kernel discussions. > > Mailing lists of a project or a company are something completely > different from using a project or company address outside of the > project.
OK, I'll think about it. > > I, for one, would welcome an informed position of the FSF. It may have > > interesting implications for Wine, ReactOS, mplayer, qemu, Java and many > > other programs loading non-free compiled code at the run time. > > Wine is licenced under the terms of the LGPL. > > ReactOS is licenced under the terms of the GPL with a licence > exception for runtime linking of non-free modules. > > QEMU is licenced under the terms of the GPL with a licence exception for > runtime linking with libqemu.a. > > GNU classpath (and libgcj) are licenced under the terms of the GPL with > a licence exception for runtime linking with it. > > As you can see, all of the above explicitely address this issue. > > The only program from your list that has a fishy licencing is mplayer. Thanks for the detailed analysis! Anyway, as far as I know, copyright covers copying of works, and dynamic linking never creates anything suitable for copying. The "derived work" stays in memory, just like it does when a proprietary program runs on top of the Linux kernel. Memory dumps might be illegal to distribute though. I'm not a lawyer and the above is not a legal advice. I don't represent Free Software Foundation. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
