Re: amber-developers: "open source" and GPL software

From: David A. Case <case.scripps.edu>
Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 08:11:46 -0700

On Wed, May 07, 2008, Ross Walker wrote:
>
> But as far as I can tell just about everything that runs on Linux is in
> breach of this license model. Is not most of the stuff in Linux GPL? If so
> then building any commercial software on Linux would breach this license
> since just linking against various system libraries statically would put
> you in breach of this. And what about dynamic linking?

Please, read the GPL license if you want information here. There is a special
exception for system libraries.

>
> Note FFTW is released under GPL so does this mean everything that links
> against it that is not GPL is in breach of the GPL license?

See the note above. Have you read the FAQ sections I pointed to? They are
very specific, and far more authoritative than I can be. To repeat myself:

   http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem

If you have questions about the meaning of this section, please cite exactly
which sentences are unclear.

>
> Surely we just build any GPL software we want to use as a library and link
> against it no? This appears to be what everyone else does.

I don't agree here. See the answers above.

...dac
Received on Sun May 11 2008 - 06:07:30 PDT
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