Re: GPL question

[John Hasler]

Mike Cox writes:
> In a previous reply, rjack says that according to copyright law (1) is
> legal too "unless contractually prohibited" but he also seems to think
> the GPL is not a contract so no prohibition is possible.  Confusion
> arises again.

Rjack is a troll.  There is no point in trying to make sense of what he
writes.

> (2) afformentioned project comes with 'windent', a gui'fied version of
> GNU indent 1.10.0 (says so right there in its main window, "This is
> adaption of Indent 1.10.0, Copyright GNU."), yet no source code
> available; plus it's distributed as part of a proprietary project.

Please identify the project so that the matter can be brought to the
attention of the copyright owners.

> Also from talking to other people, what this boils down to is the GPL is
> way too complicated for average to advanced programmers to understand;
> I'm not even sure I myself understand it completely at this time.

GPLv2 is quite simple.  Quit studying it and learn a bit about copyright.

> So let me rephrase my initial question, "If I do get caught, what
> are the consequences. Are there any?"

Google "statutory damages".

> I'm just trying to understand the difference between dynamic linking and,
> say, running an external program and talking to it via some sort of IPC
> mechanism.

Some say there is none.  Others say there is.  Some of the latter own
significant copyrights and have lawyers.  The issue has not yet been tested
in court but you could be the first.
-- 
John Hasler 
john@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA