Nate Lowrie wrote: > On 1/23/07, Paul McNett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Uwe Grauer wrote: >>> Paul McNett wrote: >>>> Ed Leafe wrote: >>>>> On Jan 23, 2007, at 3:30 PM, Paul McNett wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> I meant: why can't Nate's serial debugging tool be part of DaboDemo? >>>>>> There's no reason for Dabo or DaboDemo to distribute serial. >>>>> Depends on your legal interpretations. If you write code that links >>>>> to a GPL library, there are many schools of thought (read: MySQL) >>>>> that considers that sufficient to require all your code to be GPL'd. >>>> What do you mean by "link"? I haven't heard anyone say that merely >>>> having code that is meant to be linked to a GPL program at runtime is >>>> enough to GPL your own code. If that were true, MySQLdb would be GPL'd >>>> because it "links" to MySQL, and hence Dabo would be GPL'd because it >>>> links to MySQLdb. >>>> >>>> >>> Dabo isn't using the MySQLdb connector to make it work. >>> If MySQLdb would be used for the preferences instead of sqlite, >>> dabo had to be GPL. >> Only if Dabo distributed MySQLdb. Merely requiring it doesn't link it to >> Dabo. >> >>> Redistribution of GPL connectors would also violate the GPL. >> Redistribution of GPL software is allowed and encouraged, and expressly >> protected; certainly it isn't a violation of the GPL to redistribute. It >> is only when you link it to your software where you risk making your >> software GPL as well. The question is the term "link". If we had made >> Dabo's preferences save to MySQL, *and* we had rolled up MySQLdb into >> Dabo and redistributed it, *then* we would be GPL. But if we merely made >> MySQLdb a requirement and left it up to our users to install the >> dependencies, this would not be the case. >> > > I agree with Paul on this one. Let's think about it in these terms. > Suppose Dabo was GPL'd. What Ed is saying is that any program using > the Dabo Framework would have to be GPL'd as well because it "links" > to Dabo. What about a massive GPL'd project like Linux then? Sorry > Ed, your logic just doesn't make sense. >
Using Linix or any other GPL program is a totally different story. Using GPL programs is allowed in all cases. Linking to GPL programs is the problem. Requireing a GPL program so that you programs are able to run isn't allowed. Dabo only runs when it is able to store its preferences. So if the preferences were stored with the help of MySQLdb, dabo would be required to be GPL. Read it up for yourself here: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html Uwe _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-dev
