Not a lawyer, caveats abound, and all that, but; Excerpt from GPL's licence FAQ:
*The program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. This means that combination of the GPL-covered plug-in with the non-free main program would violate the GPL.* So, it sounds like either way you're likely to need to release under GPL or find a different library. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL On Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 07:36 Richard Frye <[email protected]> wrote: > I want to write a program that is for sale without releasing all of the > source code. Some of it is fine but parts are proprietary. Does it matter > if I dynamically link the rtlsdr library? > > -Richard > > On Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 8:45 PM Greg Troxel <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Richard Frye <[email protected]> writes: >> >> > If I write software that uses the rtlsdr library that is already >> installed >> > on the computer, does my software also have to be opensource? >> >> IANAL, TINLA. >> >> rtl-sdr and osmo-sdr both appear to be GNU GPLv2. >> >> The standard interpretation is that if you create a derived work by >> writing a program that uses those libraries, then distributing that >> derived work requires permission from the copyright holders of the used >> libraries. And, that permission is only available if you license your >> work under the same license, GPLv2. That is the point of the license. >> >> If you want to write software and not distribute it at all, that's >> another matter, and the standard interpetation is that this is ok. >> >> What are you trying to write, and what are you thinking about for >> licensing, other than GPLv2? >> >>
