On Thursday 06 November 2003 10:46, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> Let's take an example. Suppose Wine is distributed under the GPL (It's
> LGPL, but for the sake of discussion).
It is LGPL precisely to prevent the legal problems of linking against GPL
code (just like glibc is LGPL'ed for the same reason).
The only open question IMO is if courts would accept linking (dynamic or
static) as a form of *use* of the library (your view) or as a form of
*derivation* (the view stated by the FSF in its FAQ).
Note: the wine example and the example Muli gave later (short main calling
huge library) are two extreme (and interesting) cases in this
dispute.
You may notice that many companies are taking the "safer" route
by accepting de-facto the FSF view (probabely at the advice of
their own layers). One good example is your mentioning of QT:
- The original license was incompatible with GPL (the same linking
issue) and it created enough (marketing) problems for Trolltech to
change it eventually to GPL
- I am personally familiar with corporates who buy QT licenses just
to avoid this "linking" issue in the GPL version.
So it looks as its not so absurd to define linking as derivation
(although the wine case may provide a legal chalenge).
--
Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother
Nature cannot be fooled. -- R.P. Feynman
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