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GPL user restrictions ? (Developers)

posted by ecm Homepage E-mail, Düsseldorf, Germany, 23.06.2009, 20:55

> > > 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 think you meant "library" as in, well, library. A separate binary. Its code is called from other programs. GPL source libraries of course can't be used for non-GPL programs.

> > 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
Well, no, I meant that it's only use is that "the other program [using the library] explicitly doesn't have to be GPL".

> > 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,
First: Not my words. I said for users.

> I wonder why the advocatists are so big on keeping source live.
To keep the program free. That's the concept of Copyleft. (Of course enforced Copyleft is what prohibits use in proprietary programs, so that's what you are criticizing after all.)

And you didn't answer my question.

> > 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
I don't know. Only thing I heard is that there are some proprietary Linux drivers. (BTW, as the FSF says: please avoid the word "commercial" if you mean non-free software. Commercial free software is also possible.)

> > 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.
No they don't. Don't let terms like "device strategy and device interrupt calls" fool you. They communicate over calls from the kernel directly into the device driver's code, which (despite one being called device interrupt) don't use any interrupts at all.

> In
> other words they are comparable with Linux "FUSE" drivers in that regard,
> not with Linux kernel drivers.
I didn't compare them to either and I don't know more about either anyway. I compared DOS drivers to plugins, which I imagine as similar to DLLs. DLLs in turn are often used as plugins on Windows, and even with some DOS extenders. My intention is this: as close as DOS drivers are to their kernel, presumably without being affected by the kernel's GPL, how can the GPL affect plugins which technically are much less tied to their main program?

> > 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.
So because the DOS driver interface didn't change for 20-what years, any DOS driver is linked into/for my GPL DOS kernel? I hope you weren't talking about the DOS drivers here anymore, but I won't say writing plugins which reside in different binaries as the main program counts as linking them together either.

> The exact extend to what constitute linking in inter-process communcation
> is not clear to me. It is a gray area.
Which results in that the MPL plugins for the GPL program aren't exactly covered by the GPL's Copyleft.

> (snip totally random pieces of GPL license text, what were they meant to
> convey? (pun intended))
First off, I didn't get the pun, maybe because English isn't my first language. Then, I added these snippets (they're neither total nor random) after the discussion of GPL main program vs. MPL/other license plugins. Essentially here: since the program only interfaces with the plugin's binary while running, you can use the main program disregarding the GPL with your incompatible licensed plugins (if the GPL really covers that plugins have to be GPL too).

> 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.
Oh. Then, I come to the conclusion that I can only agree with you on that: it is pretty hard to forsee the consequences of choosing an extremely restrictive license. Plus, yes, the GPL is extremely restrictive when you want to use source code for proprietary programs.

---
l

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