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GPL user restrictions ? (Developers)

posted by marcov, 23.06.2009, 16:39

> > Well, that depends on your view. For e.g. a library, users are more
> > typically what you can co-authors.
>
> If they only use a LGPL library for another program, the other program
> explicitly doesn't have to be GPL.

Ah, but then are you are talking about when it is formally a separate library. I was talking about any reusable (general enough) piece of source, whether spun out to a LGPL library or not. The fact that this precise difference must be made is the problem.

> Isn't that the use of the LGPL?

Well, if you mean that about the only use of the LGPL is that it isn't GPL, then you are right :_) The LGPL has its own problems, most notably the shared linking requiring.

> > Yes. I know the theory. And it works if you are the recipient of a
> linux
> > distro, never use anything with a different license. Of course that
> works
> > with any license, including the various licenses that GPL users frown
> so
> > much on.
>
> Until something requires recompiling a program, users don't really benefit
> from the source itself.
> What do you mean by "never use anything with a
> different license"?

If, in your own words, it matters so little to have the source, I wonder why the advocatists are so big on keeping source live.

> If the user runs a linux distro and gets some
> proprietary software (say, drivers or Windows programs for Wine) he can of
> course use that with his distro.
They cannot for drivers afiaik. The commercial driver must use userspace workarounds as a loophole

> To get back on topic a bit, someone could say DOS
> drivers are "plugins" for the DOS kernel. (After all, they're specifically
> designed for the kernel and can only be used by it.) That won't stop anyone
> from using closed-source DOS drivers on GPL DOS kernels.

That's because dos drivers communicate with the kernel over interrupts. In other words they are comparable with Linux "FUSE" drivers in that regard, not with Linux kernel drivers.

> It's obvious they're different programs (if nothing else, they're stored in > different
> binaries), although there's a specific interface between them.

That makes no difference. The GPL/LGPL are licenses that invoke on linking , not on "separate binaries". And dynamic linking is explicitely included in the license text. So "linking" in the GPL sense can span binaries.

The exact extend to what constitute linking in inter-process communcation is not clear to me. It is a gray area.

> Seeing it that way, isn't a plugin interface used because it doesn't void
> the GPL to use non-GPL programs with it?
I'd say the trick that the linking via interrupts is less clear licensing.

(snip totally random pieces of GPL license text, what were they meant to convey? (pun intended))

> > But recently, with the portable versions popping up everywhere, it has
> > become a problem, since one can't distribute a full app, and thus must
> > link it on target on the enduser's systems. Requiring extra space, and
> a
> > slow build step on a stick.
>
> I don't understand the problem. Portable versions require compilation (or
> only linking) on the user's system,

Well that exactly is the problem, on a slow, small filesystem. A lot of files for the link are not needed than for just that.

The whole Lazarus example is btw just meant to illustrate that it is pretty hard to forsee the consequences of choosing an extremely restrictive license as GPL.

> but other versions can work with
> provided binaries?
They also link on the users system, but the need to mimimalistic is there less.

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