Program output - Restricted under GPL?
Werner Koch
wk at gnupg.org
Mon Nov 17 14:59:44 UTC 2003
On 13 Nov 2003 09:33:01 +0100, Reinhard Müller said:
> One program reading the output of another program doesn't make the whole
> a derived work. Not even, if they are connected via mechanisms like a
> Unix style pipe.
Well, it depends. The GPL does on purpose not specify what "derived"
exactly means. For example if you use a mechanism as above to work
around the requirements of the GPL, this may very well constitute a
derived work. A better test for this is, whether the output or input
the GPLed program is generic enough to be a useful program without
employing the non-GPL program.
Werner
--
Werner Koch FSF Europe e.V
Head of Office http://fsfeurope.org +49-700-FSFEUROPE
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