On May 14, 2012, at 8:55 AM, Paul Smith wrote: > We produce a commercial mail server (not GPLed) which has a defined DLL > interface to allow people to create plugins to integrate with virus scanners > (I'll call that an 'AV plugin DLL'). It's not specifically designed for > ClamAV, but for any 'reasonable' virus scanner, and that interface has been . > Also, you don't need a virus scanner at all to use our software, although, > obviously without one, messages won't be scanned for viruses - so it adds > optional functionality. This AV plugin DLL functionality has been in our > software for about 8 years, so it's not something we've added specifically to > try to get around GPL.
You've written a generic plugin API for your software. It's license agnostic. > If we made our software link directly with libclamav, then, as far as I can > see we'd need to GPL our software, which isn't desirable You'd need to license your software under a GPL-miscible license in order to redistribute the combination. If your proprietary/commercial license isn't currently GPL-miscible, then you could not redistribute the combination. > What if another person made an AV plugin DLL to link our software with > libclamav? I presume that by doing so, their DLL would have to be released > under the GPL, but I also presume that wouldn't force us to GPL our software > even though our software is now linking with (their) GPL software. Nothing done by someone else would require you to "GPL your software". Having end-users assemble the combination themselves via the AV plugin DLL would leave the responsibility up to them; if the licenses are not compatible, they would not be able to redistribute the combination, but they could still use it. [ This is a fair description of the case where proprietary binary drivers from nVidia or ATI/AMD get linked via a GPL'ed shim into a Linux kernel, and is why such linking is done by the end-user, and not shipped as part of a distribution. ] > What if WE made an AV plugin DLL to link our software with libclamav? If your software license isn't GPL-miscible, then you should not redistribute the combination of your software, the plugin, and ClamAV. > (At the moment we're thinking of making an AV plugin DLL which execs > clamdscan, which, AFAICS is totally 'safe' for our licensing, but it would be > much more efficient (on Windows) to have it link directly with libclamav - we > don't mind releasing the source to the AV plugin DLL - it could be a useful > example for our more technical customers) Invoke ClamAV / clamd via a socket...? Regards, -- -Chuck _______________________________________________ Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
