hypothetical(?) GPL problem

Frank Heckenbach frank at g-n-u.de
Thu Jun 21 17:43:27 UTC 2001


Marc Eberhard wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:10:34AM +0100, John Tapsell wrote:
> > This is FSF - founded by RMS.
> > Its not about market penetration - thats what 'Open Source' is.
> > FSF was/is supposed to be about doing the .. most 'pure' form of freedom.
> > excuse the quotes ;)
> 
> Exactly, that's why it seems unlogic to restrict libraries from being linked
> against commercial programs.

It is not restricted. Even assuming you wrote "commercial" when you
meant "proprietary" (again), the GPL allows you to link with
proprietary code, so you have all the freedoms.

What it does not allow is to *distribute* the resulting binary
because that would deprive the recpient from the freedoms.

So it makes perfect sense.

Frank

-- 
Frank Heckenbach, frank at g-n-u.de
http://fjf.gnu.de/
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