On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 8:11 PM, M. Warner Losh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In message: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > John Birrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > : The API for this library is deliberately different to the GPL'd > : libdwarf to avoid licensing problems. > > What licensing problems does it avoid? APIs can't be copyrighted, and > therefore can't be GPL'd. > > Warner
Well.. the GNU and linux folk have an interesting spin on this. They seem to maintain that if an API is specific to a GPL'ed code blob, then programs that use that specific API are therefore derivatives. There was a case a few years ago about the gmp library. They maintained that a 3rd party consumer of libgmp was a GPL violation if it wasn't distributed under GPL compatible terms. I seem to recall that the 'fgmp' (free-gmp) library came out, and a new release of the 3rd party package was made with the references in the documentation changed to something like 'uses fgmp or a fgmp-compatible library like gmp' or some such. It was all a giant circus and waste of effort, especially since fgmp wasn't really a viable gmp replacement. The next point is that the Linux folks (including Linus) seem to consider that making calls to the linux kernel causes your driver to be a derivative, unless the API you're calling has been blessed as a public interface. (To be fair, I can see the point for their specific circumstances, but their interpretation of copyright seems to be quite a stretch to me). Back to this case. There are non-GPL implementations of libdwarf out there. I think the API is well and truly fair game at this point. -- Peter Wemm - [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5 "If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution." -- Robert Sewell _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/cvs-all To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
