On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 05:15:04PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: > On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 04:38:04PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > So, you don't need an extreme example. It's perfectly valid for one to > > take Emacs, link it against OpenSSL, and distribute binaries, as long as > > OpenSSL doesn't accompany it. > > In the U.S., at least, "linking it against OpenSSL" probably counts as > "accompanying it", even if the binaries for the OpenSSL library do not > appear on the same distribution media as the binaries for Emacs.
Huh? Are you claiming that the OS exception doesn't allow linking against GPL-incompatible system libraries? I've always found that to be a major part of its purpose; otherwise, it would be impossible to eg. distribute GPL Windows applications at all--libc, GUI libraries, etc. are all GPL-incompatible. If you disagree, we might have to punt to the FSF yet again. This is a critical question to me, since I'm involved in a project that makes use of a GPL library which runs in Windows. (Of course, another, simpler reason for the exception is so you don't have to include the glibc source with every GPL program.) -- Glenn Maynard