Re: GPL question

[Richard Tobin]

In article <85ejlfuq1v.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>, David Kastrup  <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

>> I'm not suggesting that Apple does not allow you to do this.  What I
>> find surprising is that Apple *could* legally stop people distributing
>> programs for their operating system.

>Could you please refrain from constantly changing the topic?
>"Programs for their operating system" and "Program linked with their
>development libraries for their operating system" are two different
>topics.

I'm not intending to change the subject.  I mean programs that use the
libraries provided with the system that are unique to MacOS X.

>If you are merely using the system call interface of the kernel, you
>are not involved with creating a derivative work, and as long as the
>customer has a license for running arbitrary programs, there is no
>copyright problem from Apple.

I'm interested that you think that you might need a licence to run
arbitrary programs.  (Yes, I saw that you later suggested it might be
fair use.)  Incidentally, it's been suggested that Apple might not
allow arbitrary programs to be run on the iPhone.

>But this license _is_ necessary.  In a
>similar vein, a license for distributing stuff linked with development
>libraries is necessary.  There is, for example, Cygwin, a POSIXy
>environment for Unix.  Even though the interfaces are standard, you
>are not free to compile and link with Cygwin and consider the result
>a mere aggregation.

I was talking about programs that had calls to the libraries, not ones
that included the library in the distribution.  But your earlier
argument suggests that their is no distrinction between these, if
the only way to use (that part of) the program is with the libraries.

-- Richard
-- 
"Consideration shall be given to the need for as many as 32 characters
in some alphabets" - X3.4, 1963.