Re: Dynamic loading progress

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Daniel Colascione writes:

 > There's no way to require that everything in the Emacs address
 > space be licensed under the GPL.

That is true (for example, the data segment is not covered by Emacs's
GPL unless it contains Emacs code), but it's a useful guide to
reasoning about code.

 > And that's a good thing, because equating sharing an address space
 > with a "derivative work" boundary is ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure Richard doesn't consider it "ridiculous", though I
expect he'd prefer a phrase like "as a first approximation" to "equate".

 > Even if Emacs were to look for some I_LOAD_ONLY_GPLV3=1 export from
 > loaded modules, the GPL does not prohibit a module simply lying.

The GPL doesn't prohibit any behavior of software.  However, it
arguably would prohibit distribution of a module that lies in that
way.  Not because of the falsehood of the lie, but because from the
fact of the lie I deduce the module actually violates the terms of the
GPL by creating a derivative work, not all of which is licensed under
the GPL.  (I understand you disagree with that argument in principle.
I'm just saying that it can be argued, and I expect it *would* be
argued by the FSF, all the way to court if necessary.)