[fpc-other] Re: GPL Lisence help

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Jonas Maebe wrote:
> (moved to the fpc-other list)
> 
> 
> On 28 Jul 2012, at 07:28, Jorge Aldo G. de F. Junior wrote:
> 
>> Your module/lib is GPL but code linked to it must not be and this is
>> not a violation of GPL.
> 
> It is a violation of the GPL if you distribute the result under a non-GPL compatible license.
> 
>> Think about this : Can you think about the relationship of your
>> modules versus someone else modules as being intrinsecally the same
>> relation between linux and proprietary apps that happen to run in
>> linux ?
> 
> Yes, because the GPL explicitly mentions that "system libraries" (which it defines as including the OS kernel) are treated differently by the license, exactly to avoid this problem. Otherwise it would also be impossible to legally run GPL programs on Windows or Mac OS X.

I wonder if I could throw in a thought here. If you have a GLPed program 
that has the capability of dynamically loading proprietary extensions, 
you've got to have a file describing the interface to each group of 
libraries. In most if not all cases this file- a .h, .inc or similar- 
will appear in both sets of code, and there is a risk that somebody 
could claim that having a file that they've received as GPL "infects" 
the source of the proprietary libraries.

I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that the safest thing is to ensure that 
files of that nature cannot be copyrighted by having the content being 
purely factual: non-descriptive parameter names and absolutely no 
comments. Obviously there could be copious documentation and/or an 
unsanitised variant of each file, but this should not be bundled with 
the sourcecode.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]