On Oct 30, Bruce Perens wrote: > From: Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sure, but a frontend isn't mere aggregation -- in this case if you take > > out the GPLed part of the system, the performance of that front end > > can't happen. > > Well, I'd like the law to agree with you, actually. The problem is that > copyright law does not consider _reference_ a form of derivation. This would > give us problem with dynamic libraries, too, except that the headers get > copied into the application.
I suspect a blanket prohibition on reference by non-GPL'ed software would be incredibly dumb, even if it were permitted by copyright law. It would forbid anything non-free from operating as a shell (and would even prohibit KDE programs from launching GNU software). Not to mention that it'd be impossible to launch GNU software on a non-GNU system, or even boot a GNU system in the first place (as the boot sector is referenced by a non-free BIOS or other boot rom). I really can't even see the point of forbidding non-free programs from calling dpkg... either (a) they'll reimplement dpkg as non-free software (reimplementing dpkg might be a good idea in and of itself, but a non-free dpkg is pretty worthless to everyone, and probably a source of confusion to boot) or (b) adopt another package manager. (In any event, you're talking about double-indirection here; I assume apt's authors don't give a rat's ass who calls their program, and apt is the program that runs dpkg.) Chris -- ============================================================================= | Chris Lawrence | Get Debian GNU/Linux CDROMs | | <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://www.lordsutch.com/cds/ | | | | | Open Directory Editor | Join the party that opposed the CDA | | http://dmoz.org/ | http://www.lp.org/ | =============================================================================
