Andrew Clausen wrote: > Hi Hin-Tak, > > On Tue, Aug 07, 2007 at 01:10:36AM +0100, Hin-Tak Leung wrote: >> GPL-licensed code dlopen()'ing proprietary-licensed binary-only DLL/so >> is allowed > > Do you have any evidence? (eg: something written on www.fsf.org?) > > As far as I know, the normal grounds for allowing GPL code to link with > proprietary code is the text > > "However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include > anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with > the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on > which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the > executable."
I don't - but openbugs (if you assume it to be the 'major' component) is certainly not part of the OSes on which the resulting executable runs. Consider a few well-known applications in the x86 linux world for loading binary-only windows DLLs - e.g. ndiswrapper, mplayer. They distribute the different licensed components separately, or ask the users to get it elsewhere. *Re-distribution* (not usage of) of components bundling together having different re-distributing licensing terms is a sticky matter. Hin-Tak P.S. I don't know if the original poster has any intention of distributing his package for others to use; but having parts of his package distributed binary-only and also under a different and more restrictive license term can be sticky. ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
