On May 14, 2012, at 11:55 AM, Paul Smith wrote: > OK, I know this will probably have come up over and over, but I couldn't find > anything in the archives. > > 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. > > 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 > > 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. > > What if WE made an AV plugin DLL to link our software with libclamav? > > (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)
Sorry it's taken me this long to chime in on this thread. If you are interested in doing something like this, I suggest you contact me offlist so I can put you in touch with our legal team. They are the experts on this kind of thing and should handle this type inquiry. -- Joel Esler Senior Research Engineer, VRT OpenSource Community Manager Sourcefire _______________________________________________ Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
