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From: | Hyman Rosen |
Subject: | Re: GPL traitor ! |
Date: | Fri, 08 May 2009 09:41:19 -0400 |
User-agent: | Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (Windows/20090302) |
Alan Mackenzie wrote:
Do you mean that if somebody adds functionality to GPL program, and arranges for this new functionality to be called through a socket call (substitute technically correct terms here) rather than a normal function call, that somebody can remain within the terms of the GPL without licensing his new stuff under the GPL, regardless of how intertwined the new functionality is with the original program? If so, I think you're mistaken. But please try and convince me otherwise.
Yes, that's what I mean. Doing it by function call is OK as well. The only thing that forces the foreign code to come under the GPL is if the binary program is built as a statically linked whole incorporating the GPL and non-GPL code. It is that binding into a single work that makes the non-GPL portion fall under the "work as a whole" clause and requires that all of it be distributed under the GPL. You appear to believe that modifying the source of a GPLed program so that it invokes a function which is provided separately under a non-GPL license violates the GPL even when the modified program is distributed *as source*. Is that true? If so, then you are certainly incorrect, since copyright law contains no concept of a computer program "working". Copyright law doesn't consider functionality, just text, just expression.
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