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Re: license issue: calling a GPLv2 library


From: David Kastrup
Subject: Re: license issue: calling a GPLv2 library
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:46:50 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux)

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

> "Alfred M. Szmidt" wrote:
>> 
>>    You can run Windows programs under Wine if you want to.  MS Windows
>>    is not required.  And the executable of a Windows program never
>>    gets linked with Windows: there is no address resolution done, and
>>    Windows never becomes part of the executable.
>> 
>> Headers might be included that contain MS Windows code.  
>
> Using whatever interoperabilty stuff doesn't create copyright
> violation, stupid.  Go study DMCA and all that.

You are confused.  Taking technical measures for interoperability does
not violate the copyright of material licensed to you.  It does not
magically create a license to stuff that has not been licensed to you.

If a program does not even work without a particular library, this is
not a case of "interoperability".  Interoperability does come into
play when there is _more_ than one possible environment to interface
with.  If you get a program that can be linked to a BSD-licensed
library, you are free to take the technical measures required to link
it to a GPLed library instead (though you can't redistribute the
result under anything but GPL), and this is no skin off the nose of
your program provider.  But "interoperability" does not come into play
where there is only one possible target to link with.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum


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