El Dom 16 Ago 2009 18:06:27 Bruce Allen escribió: > Thanks for the note and for the link. Does this mean for example that > GPLd code is not allowed to link to the CUDA libraries (which are > non-GPL and not normally distributed with the OS)?
The libraries don't have to be GPL. They can also be a *more liberal* license, such as LGPL or BSD. A GPL program, however, normally can't be linked to a proprietary library, unless the program has an exception on its license saying the copyright holder explicitly allows linking to that one proprietary library. Or a GPL library could say proprietary programs are allowed to link to it but only if they use a certain subset of API functions. > Does this mean that GPL programs can > not display on an NVIDIA graphics card (since they need to send data to > an NVIDIA device driver, not distributed as part of the OS?). A device driver isn't "linked" to the program that uses it; they interact via IPC. Otherwise, it wouldn't be legal for proprietary programs to run on Linux, since they are making syscalls to the Linux kernel, which is GPL. _______________________________________________ boinc_dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ssl.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/boinc_dev To unsubscribe, visit the above URL and (near bottom of page) enter your email address.
