Paul, In your opinion, would Luca's situation - calling glpsol from a "shell" command - be arm's length?
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Mars Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 6:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Help-glpk] Command-line and GPL I guess this is covered in the FAQ at the GNU.org web site at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem [quote] You cannot incorporate GPL-covered software in a proprietary system. The goal of the GPL is to grant everyone the freedom to copy, redistribute, understand, and modify a program. If you could incorporate GPL-covered software into a non-free system, it would have the effect of making the GPL-covered software non-free too. A system incorporating a GPL-covered program is an extended version of that program. The GPL says that any extended version of the program must be released under the GPL if it is released at all. This is for two reasons: to make sure that users who get the software get the freedom they should have, and to encourage people to give back improvements that they make. However, in many cases you can distribute the GPL-covered software alongside your proprietary system. To do this validly, you must make sure that the free and non-free programs communicate at arms length, that they are not combined in a way that would make them effectively a single program. The difference between this and "incorporating" the GPL-covered software is partly a matter of substance and partly form. The substantive part is this: if the two programs are combined so that they become effectively two parts of one program, then you can't treat them as two separate programs. So the GPL has to cover the whole thing. If the two programs remain well separated, like the compiler and the kernel, or like an editor and a shell, then you can treat them as two separate programs--but you have to do it properly. The issue is simply one of form: how you describe what you are doing. Why do we care about this? Because we want to make sure the users clearly understand the free status of the GPL-covered software in the collection. If people were to distribute GPL-covered software calling it "part of" a system that users know is partly proprietary, users might be uncertain of their rights regarding the GPL-covered software. But if they know that what they have received is a free program plus another program, side by side, their rights will be clear. [/quote] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Makhorin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Meketon, Marc" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 2:16 AM Subject: Re: [Help-glpk] Command-line and GPL >> People build commercial applications all the time under Linux. These >> applications implicitly call the Linux kernel, and perhaps explicitly >> call on a variety of commands (which are really applications) like "mv", >> "cp" and so on. Yet these commercial applications are not under the >> GPL. I think Luca's situation is similar. > > I do not think so. Commercial software does not mean non-free (i.e. > proprietary) software. On the other hand, if someone does not want to > make his software free, he is free to make it non-free. However, in > this case it would be fair not to use free software at all, wouldn't > be? It seems to me this is the main point of GPL. (Sorry for my bad > English.) > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Help-glpk mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-glpk > _______________________________________________ Help-glpk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-glpk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential or legally privileged. If you received this message in error or are not the intended recipient, you should destroy the e-mail message and any attachments or copies, and you are prohibited from retaining, distributing, disclosing or using any information contained herein. Please inform us of the erroneous delivery by return e-mail. Thank you for your cooperation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Help-glpk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-glpk
