Now, I'm not challenging Richard Stallman, but postgres is BSD and has the ability to link to the readline library. They don't distribute it though. So it depends on the packages that the user has installed. It seems to prefer editline, but will use readline if available.
http://search.postgresql.org/search?q=readline&a=1&submit=Search Joe On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 3:59 AM, Ola Bini <[email protected]> wrote: > Charles Oliver Nutter wrote: >> >> Wayne Meissner wrote: >>> >>> That correct, with a small wrinkle. Where there is an ABI compatible >>> library, which can be used as a complete replacement, and the binary >>> is dynamically linked, then it could be argued that the code is >>> intended to link with the ABI compatible library, and not the GPLed >>> variant. >>> >>> Given that libeditline is BSD licenced, and provides the same api as >>> libreadline (indeed, on MacOS, it _is_ liibreadline), then the GPL >>> would not apply - at least as far as using readline via FFI. >> >> Yeah, Conrad and I discussed that aspect of it too. And this is purely my >> supposition, but I don't think it would be hard to argue in court that *any* >> library dynamically linking to another could be claimed to expect only that >> library's ABI, and that since said ABI could potentially be reimplemented, >> GPL would again not apply. Or at least, that sounds logical in my head. >> >> It also seems difficult to believe that companies shipping libreadline >> (like Apple) haven't already been over this, or aren't at least comfortable >> that the "linking clause" is ambiguous enough that they don't need to worry >> about it. Last I checked, OS X was not GPL, and it both ships and links to >> libreadline. >> > Before going any further, take a look at RMS arguing about this here > (specifically about the ABI for readline, and so on): > http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL > > > Cheers > > -- > Ola Bini (http://olabini.com) Ioke creator (http://ioke.org) > JRuby Core Developer (http://jruby.org) > Developer, ThoughtWorks Studios (http://studios.thoughtworks.com) > Practical JRuby on Rails (http://apress.com/book/view/9781590598818) > > "Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined. > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from this list, please visit: > > http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, please visit: http://xircles.codehaus.org/manage_email
