On Tuesday 03 July 2007 09:44, Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:
> Ethan Merrit wrote:
> > This sounds strange to me.
> > The question is usually raised in the other direction - whether GPL
> > libraries can be used by a non-GPL program [*].
> >
> > Here you are saying that a GPL program cannot use non-GPL libraries.
> > I believe this is false. To take an obvious example, consider GPL
> > software running on Windows and calling into the system libraries.
> > Do you think that Cygwin has been in violation of the GPL all these
> > years?
> >
> > Or perhaps I misunderstand. Are you saying that the current CCP4
> > license does not permit combination with non-CCP4 code?
> >
> If you have a GPL'd program that relies on another software component
> with a restricted license, you can distribute the GPL'd program, but not
> the libraries or other software components it relies on,
I agree.
> which means that distribution becomes meaningless.
Not at all. Consider all those users of GPL programs running on Windows.
The developers of cygwin, mplayer, etc have no right to redistribute
Windows itself. But they are free to distribute GPL tools that any
Windows user can install and run. And a very large number of Windows
users do exactly that. The distribution is not "meaningless".
There is currently a lot of smoke and shouting arising ariound similar
issues, but I believe most of it is overly focused on political rather
than legal concerns or logic. The GPL cannot require that a program
is runnable on every machine in existence. You must logically have
compatible hardware, operating system, and yes, support libraries.
For example, a GPL license for Coot is not violated just because I
cannot run it on my dusty old VAX/VMS workstation.
> The receiver of your program
> does not have the same rights to free software that you do. Whether or
> not that is in fact a _breach_ of the GPL license I am not qualified to
> say, but I think it is.
They do have the same rights. They can use it, modify it, and
redistribute it. They may or may not be permitted to distribute
3rd party libraries with it, but that was true of the original
distributor also.
Well, there is of course one respect in which the rights are different.
The original author retains the copyright itself, and consequently
the right to issue other non-exclusive licenses. The recipient
of GPL code does not obtain a right to re-license.
Ethan
--
Ethan A Merritt
