On 11/14/2008 11:57 AM, Carlos Ungil wrote:
Barry Rowlingson wrote:
This misconception of the license terms comes about because of the
use of the word 'use'. If I distribute a short C program that has a
call in it to a function that has the same name as something in the
GSL, does my C program use the GSL? No. Maybe it _mentions_ the GSL,
but the GPL has no problems with that.
Maybe the GPL has no problems with that, but GSL authors will have. For
example, regarding a similar situation one of the GSL authors commented:
[http://sourceware.org/ml/gsl-discuss/2001-q4/msg00033.html]
Any distributed code which refers to GSL functions should be licensed
to the end-user under the GPL. The intent of the GPL is that we make
our code free to other people if they do the same for us --- two-way
cooperation. The current R-quant license is not a free software
license so there should not be anything distributed under that license
which directly refers to GSL functions.
Barry Rowlingson wrote:
I'm distributing my C program, and not the GPL-covered code, so I can
license it how I like.
And the copyright owners have recourse to legal action if they think there
is a license violation. Again, I don't know what a court would decide, but
if you want to test the limits of the GPL license I would avoid challenging
a GNU project :-)
Actually, I think that's an ideal situation. There is a lot of fear and
doubt about using GPL'd software, because of worries like yours. But
the FSF has the resources to follow up in cases where there are actual
violations, and they have won several.
The way to lose a GPL lawsuit is to incorporate GPL'd code into your own
project, and then not follow the GPL when you redistribute. There's
evidence of that.
But I've never heard of anyone linking to but not distributing GPL'd
code and being sued for it, let alone losing lawsuits over it. That's
evidence enough for me that it is a safe thing to do.
Duncan Murdoch
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