-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 05 June 2003 14:28, you wrote: > On Wed, Apr 16, 2003 at 08:28:48AM -0400, Sean E. Russell via RT wrote: > > I'm writing to request a formal "ruling" on a specific case of mixing the > > GPL with a non-GPL program. ... > That said, I cannot go through the details of your question and determine > what would and would not permissible under the GNU General Public License. > We offer such service freely to those who are trying to make more free > software, but this question pertains to proprietary software. As a > 501(c)(3) with a charter committed to software freedom, it would not be > appropriate to spend our donors' funds to go through all the details in > cases like this. > > We do offer a fee-for-service model, if you or the developers of XXE want > to pay us to go through these details with you to make sure you are > complying with the license. Let me know if you are interested. > > Otherwise, the best I can say is that you are required to comply with the > GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) and > other free software licenses, and it is your responsibility to > make sure you fulfill those obligations.
Thank you for the response. I have nothing to do with the software in question, except that I use it. As I mentioned, the software does come in a free form, and this is the form that I use; the version that costs money has some convenience features, but is otherwise not much different. In any case, the question I had pertained to the language of the GPL, which I find ambiguous at best, especially in regards to the interaction between two pieces of software. Specifically, is a non-executable data file GPL-able? I do not believe so. But, more generally, can a commercial product use the output of a GPL program? Can a commercial product /run/ a GPL program and use the output? Can a non-GPL program read a data file for a GPL program, and use the data? I believe that clear answers to these questions are critical, and I also believe that it is in the FSF's (and OpenSource and Free Software community's) best interest to have clarification on these questions. Thank you, - -- ### SER Deutsch|Esperanto|Francaise|Linux|Java|Ruby|Aikido|Dirigibles ### ### http://www.germane-software.com/~ser jabber.com:ser ICQ:83578737 ### ### GPG: http://www.germane-software.com/~ser/Security/ser_public.gpg ### -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+3+nQP0KxygnleI8RApx6AJ4l5XNU9lYKu8biMfuY0X1dIt0UFQCeNqpX rgIjf9rLgF+mOGfxHBqLdCY= =1S7T -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
