Mćns Rullgćrd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > What if there was a package wget++ that communicated with openssl > > entirely through system() or exec() calls? It would construct > > appropriate input and parse openssl's output. Would that constitute > > linking? It ends up using all of the same code as the directly linked > > version. > > The Gnus newsreader, running under Emacs, does precisely this, and has > done so for many years. > > > If it is not linking, why couldn't you do this with all GPL'd > > libraries? You could write a GPL'd wrapper around a library, and just > > use the wrapper with exec(). > > A while back, the general agreement seemed to be that this would be > allowed.
I don't doubt you, but when was that? It would be good to see surrounding discussion. > > In essence, why does using exec() suddenly break the chain, while a > > linker or classloader does not? > > I don't see an obvious difference, but the GPL FAQ does mention this > distinction. I think this is really the point of contention. There is no good reason to say that exec() is a magic boundary. That is why I don't see the difference between linking in the C sense and calling libraries through an interpreter. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]