On Thu, 18 October 2001, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > can someone give a legal explanation why the following aren't true? > 1) the GPL does not prohibit linking
In advance answer to those who say, "the LGPL allows linking, and states that the GPL prohibits it." I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if the GPL would have to stand alone, or whether the FSF could submit the LGPL to show intent of the GPL, or what. But even then, the GPL allows translating the source code of a library into a machine representation. I then take my proprietary source and translate it into a machine level representation. I put those two machine representations next to each other in memory or on a floppy, it's aggregation. but simply aggregating a library will always be a useless action. A library has no usability unless I can call it by some means. so, "fair use" to me would still have to allow me to at least modify the machine representation enough such that I can use it, call it, whatever. from the LGPL: > When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or > using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally > speaking a combined work, a derivative of the original library. two separate blocks of source code side by side is "aggregation", but two separate blocks of machine code side by side, is a derived work? because you have to modify the machine code to actually use them? Can you allow derivatives that are translations to machine level, but are useless because no one can link into them? Is there no concept of "fair use" in this arena? "Well Greg, you can use them, as long as your source code is GPL or LGPL or something like that." Does it make sense if you flip it around? Micro$oft makes source code available for their programs, but you can only compile it with other Microsoft Public Licensed software. how many would be screaming "No Fair Use!" ??? I suppose when all else fails, aggregate some acceptable level of code, and give the user a push button script so they can combine the two together. luckily, LGPL allows this. If it really is a derived work, another license might not be so forgiving. Oh, well, whatever lets you sleep at night. Greg -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
