On 11 Jul 2001, Brian May wrote: (IANAL ;-)
> Hello, > > Lets say I am writing a frontend (call it X), to a GPL package > (eg. gnupg), and want to be a prick and disallow commercial use. You bastard ;-) > This > runs gnupg by forking and execing it and supplying STDIN while reading > STDOUT. > > Does the GPL allow this? I don't see why not. You're not changing the original source of GnuPG in this case, so there's no violation of GPL here. > Now, say my front end requires a special feature that isn't > implemented in gnupg (it is specific to my application), so with my > application, I distribute a source code patch to gnupg that makes it > do the stuff I require. > > Does the GPL allow this? Sure. You're making changes, but distribute those changes, as GPL requires. No problem here. > Now say one of the source files, eg. snprintf.o (or similar stuff) > required to build X, and this file is licensed, by other authors, > under the GPL. This file is only required where the OS doesn't provide > the function. > > The GPL doesn't allow this does it? Sorry, but I'm not following you here anymore. Could you help me out? ;-) > (not that I want to try and start a flame war over the GPL, I just > want a 2nd opinion that my understanding is correct). Then why didn't you go to -legal? It's there for such things Cc set. -- wouter dot verhelst at advalvas in belgium www.debian.org resistance is futile, you will be packaged...
