>Can GPL'd things be shipped as a *subsystem*? For example, can SuperOS
>ship gcc with their OS without having to have any of their OS subject
>to any restrictions because of GPL?
The GPL requires that any derived work be licensed under the GPL.
Basically, anything that either contains GPL'd code, or is linked against
GPL'd code in any way (statically or dynamically) is considered a dervied
work. Some licenses, such as X11 style licenses allow code to be combined
with GPL'd code such that the derived work is released under the GPL. (The
uncombined code remains under its originally license however). Other
licenses do not. One of the licenses that does not is the Netscape Public
License. Embedding Kaffe into Netscape would require linking and so that is
impossible. (It might be possible to design some type of client/server
protocol to get around this restriction, but that is beyond the scope of my
message.
The GPL does have a clause that basically says it is legal to link GPL'd
code with items than normally some with the operating system (such as the C
library, or the code in system calls) even if that code is proprietary.
That is why GPL'd apps can run as a subsystem on almost any machine.
There is one way Kaffe could be embedded into Mozilla. If Transvirtual said
it was ok, and added a special clause that allowed linking with Mozilla,
then it would be legal. The copyright holder has the right to permit
whatever they wish. Right now, Transvirtual is the copyright owner on all
of Kaffe, so they can create a license restriction. However, if they accept
contributions for which they are not the copyright holder, things become
very complicated very quickly and relaxing the GPL's provisions becomes much
more difficult. Because Transvirtual plans to sell proprietary versions of
Kaffe, they will probably either not accept any contributions to ensure
their right to retain copyright, or adopt an FSF-like assignment policy.
Japhar is LGPL'd and so can be embedded in Mozilla. So Java support is
probably only as far as Japhar's maturity.
--
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* Aaron M. Renn *
* Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Homepage: <URL:http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/> *
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