[note -- not a lawyer] [note -- not necessarily squeak-related]
What does CSRCS from www.componentsoftware.com do, then? They use GNU RCS and then they wrote some Windows shell extensions to version arbitrary files (I think it's pretty slick too).
What they said they did is split the code into two DLL's, one which they'd give the source away for and another they didn't.
My question is under what circumstances can GPL'd code be used by other software? I'd guess it'd be ok if nongpl'd "clients" were talking to gpl'd servers over HTTP. Would there be a problem if they plugged in a couple ORBs and used IIOP?
Curious..
Ranjan --- agree@carltonfields.com wrote:
The problem does not go away. According to RMS, who I take as an authority on the GPL (at least with respect to whether questions under the GPL are "arguable." There is also the issue of modifications and reproduction (which the Courts have cosntrued to be a natural consequence of use). This has been discussed in a fair amount of depth earlier.
RMS has taken some unambiguous positions that non-GPL'd code may not call GPL'd (as opposed to LGPL'd code) in a DLL, without treating all of the calling code as a derivative work. The OSS community is fierce in its defense of a GPL violation, even in fairly sympathetic, if not, excusable scenarios. In view of all of this, it would be silly for us to start creating problems for ourselves by writing GPL software intended for use in an image with non-GPL software.
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