Re: Things you can do with Cygwin

[DJ Delorie <dj at delorie dot com>]

> We need to remember that the GPL has never been tested in court so
> sitting around declaring what it might mean strikes me as a waste of
> time.

Just because the GPL hasn't been to court doesn't mean it never will.
If it does go to court, would you rather have a full understanding of
what's going to happen, or would you rather be blindsided?

The GPL was designed by lawyers, not programmers.  They used the term
"work" for a reason.  *If* it went to court, the court would decide if
the software in question was one work, or separate works.  It's my
understanding that making that kind of decision isn't new to the
courts, although the GPL would be, and that they would simply decide
one way or the other based on the evidence and that would be the end
of it.

> The static linking case is clear.

Agreed.

> Dynamic linking is not so clear, it is likely covered by the GPL but
> who knows for sure.

My claim is that the fact that it's dynamically linked is irrelevent;
all that is relevent is whether there are two independent works
involved, or only one.

For example, a self-extracing zip file is really two works, but only
one executable.  I believe that it's possible to have two executables
that together form one work.  In that case, regardless of how the two
programs interoperate, the GPL would apply to both as a single unit.

> GPLed Java libs use dynamic linking but do not cause Java programs
> to become GPLed.

Because the Java ABI is a standard, and you could replace one java
implementation with another and get the same results.  Thus, the
combination of "java app + java lib" is not a single work, it is two
works used together.

In addition, a library implementer may choose to specifically allow
programs using that library via dynamic linking to consider themselves
separate works; the library author may choose to allow that, but the
application author may not (for the library).

> Talking to a GPLed program over a socket does not have anything to
> do with the GPL.

Agreed.  What matters is whether the two programs doing the talking
are one work, or two.  If they are one work, the GPL on one applies to
the other.  If not, they don't.

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