What's "Linking" under the GPL?

Andrew C. Greenberg werdna at mucow.com
Fri Nov 2 13:27:21 UTC 2001


On Friday, November 2, 2001, at 03:32  AM, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se 
wrote:

> What I react to is more the association of GPL with communism (in it's
> negative forms).

Let's see.  GPL requires, and enforces by operation of law and the power 
of the state, that anyone using the software must, upon distribution, 
share their work derived therefrom with everyone who asks for it.

Whether or not this is deemed by Goran to be a bad thing, it appears he 
objects to the use of the term more because it is pejorative than 
because it is apt.   Just as he appropriates the word "free" for use 
with GPL, presumably to capture the salutary connotations of the word, 
he quibbles with others who use moderately apt phrases because of 
negative connotations therewith.

In fact, GPL cannot stand or fall on wordplay (and that is *ALL* this 
thread has been about -- there has yet to be a single substantive 
argument as to the benefits of the highly-constrained GPL license for 
monolithic Smalltalk image).  I argue the devil's advocacy here, not 
because I believe GPL is a socialist plot, but to lay naked the fact 
that FSF zealots, and their more rational colleagues such as Goran, rely 
heavily upon (and therefore react negatively against) a big-brotheresque 
newspeak in lieu of argument.

Seriously, Goran.  Nobody on this forum sees the questions here as deep 
or demonstrating anything other than our desire to debate.  I have 
begged thus far for a REASON why GPL has anything good to offer the 
world where monolithic images lives.

It is plain beyond cavil that if GPL did not permit distribution with 
independent blocks of software not GPL'd, or interaction with non-GPL 
software at the operating system level, NOBODY ANYWHERE would use it.  
Its success depended upon compromising the RMS-free (to distinguish the 
term from the ordinary usage) software principles for the realities of a 
Unix operating system.  He simply decided that there aren't enough folks 
using a monolithic image to justify compromising for smalltalk systems.

Thus, whether it is RMS-free or not, it is useless for Smalltalk where 
ANY code is not GPL'd.  This is, of course, is a really bad thing, 
whether it is RMS-free or not.





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