Re: Questions about a special exception to the GPL

[Hyman Rosen]

On 5/19/2010 4:16 AM, Tassilo Horn wrote:
>    Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
>    making a combined work based on this library.  Thus, the terms and
>    conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
>    combination.

Whether a work is a combined work is dependent on the details
of copyright law, not on your wishes. So you cannot simply
declare that a dynamically linked work is a combined work for
purposes of using copyright to determine how that work may be
copied and distributed.

In my opinion (not universally shared, obviously) a program
which dynamically links to libraries is not a combined work
containing those libraries and is not a derivative work of
those libraries, and thus the copyrights of those libraries
cannot be used to constrain the copying and distribution of
the program, especially if the libraries are not supplied
with the program but are made available separately.

>    As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
>    permission to release your combined work using this library under any
>    free software license listed at
>        http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
>    no matter if GPL-compatible or GPL-incompatible, unless you apply
>    modifications to the library's source code itself.

You would probably be better off listing the licenses individually
instead of pointing to a web site which links to other web sites.
Or you could just go LGPL.

> Should I add something along the lines of
>    Modifications to code generated by the library are explicitly allowed
>    by the special exception.
> to the exception text?

I think at this point you start getting into such complexities
of ownership that you'll drive away users unless the permissions
are crystal clear.