On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
Including code from non-free libraries will make your package non-free.
Not true. The result would be illegal, not non-free. For it to be legal the whole work has to be licensed under the GNU GPL.
,----[ The GNU General Public License - Section 2 ] | b. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that | in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program | or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge | to all third parties under the terms of this License. `----
According to my understanding of the matter, if I use the GNU GPL, then these conditions apply to people who want to use my code. A library with a different license may permit me to use and distribute it in combination with my package. However, this doesn't make that library part of "the Program", i.e., my package, nor does it cause the GNU GPL to apply to the library.
Laurence Finston