Is this clarification sufficient? If not, what more do we require?
If there is a list of unowned todos to be resolved, I'll follow up on them.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Prof Eben Moglen on L/GPL and jars Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 09:59:02 -0800 (PST) From: J Aaron Farr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: "Jakarta General List" <[email protected]> To: [email protected]
With all the discussion about licensing with LGPL stuff, I thought this might be interesting to everyone. Comes from the new Slashdot interview with Eben Moglen.
(http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/03/02/20/1544245.shtml?tid=117&tid=123)
2) Clarifying the GPL by sterno
One issue that I know has come up for me is how the GPL applies in situations where I'm using GPL software but I'm not actually modifying it. For example, I write a Java application, and it is reliant on a JAR that is GPL'd. Do I then need to GPL my software? I haven't changed the JAR in anyway, I'm just redistributing it with my software. The end user could just as easily download the JAR themselves, it's just a convenience for me to offer it in my package.
Eben:
The language or programming paradigm in use doesn't determine the rules of compliance, nor does whether the GPL'd code has been modified. The situation is no different than the one where your code depends on static or dynamic linking of a GPL'd library, say GNU readline. Your code, in order to operate, must be combined with the GPL'd code, forming a new combined work, which under GPL section 2(b) must be distributed under the terms of the GPL and only the GPL. If the author of the other code had chosen to release his JAR under the Lesser GPL, your contribution to the combined work could be released under any license of your choosing, but by releasing under GPL he or she chose to invoke the principle of "share and share alike."
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jaaron
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