Don Armstrong <d...@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Mar 2009, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> > The "OS exception" in the GPL just allows you to omit things like
> > libc from "the complete source". The The "OS exception" in the GPL
> > does not allow you to treat license compatibility between GPL code
> > and "system libraries" different from license compatibility between
> > GPL code and any other library that was created as a separate work.
>
> Those of us who have been dealing with licensing issues for quite some
> time are very familiar with the "major components of the operating
> system" exception to GPL v2 ?3 and the "System Libraries" exception of
> GPL v3 ?1.
"Those of us....", are you kidding?
You just verify again that you did not deal with license issues before,
you definitely have not been part of the discussion around 1987 when
_we_ did find the solution for problems with early GPL versions. The soulution
for these problems was to introduce the "system library exception" because
e.g. libc from SunOS in 1987 could not be distributed as part of a "complete
source". The "system library exception" is just to avoid making the GPL
violate the license rules from SunOS in the 1980s or other OS platform
from that time.
If you like to take part if this discussion, you would first need to carefully
read the GPL and to read what I wrote.
Your current reply is not related to what I wrote and for this reason, we
cannot base any further discussion on your statements.
Let me repeat:
The "system library exception" has one single goal: It allows to reduce the
amount of code that needs to be published as "complete source" as required by
GPL section 3.
The "system library exception" definitely does not deal with license
compatibility. License compatibility is a completely independend issue.
As said, license compatibility needs to be discussed separately. If you like
to allow to publish binaries from GPLd programs for _any_ OS that does not
come with a GPLd "libc", you need to allow (*) to link _any_ GPLd program
against _any_ library that is not part of "the work" of the GPLd program. The
rules of the GPL end at "work" limit and neither libc nor libschily or libscg
are part of the "work" mkisofs. For this reason, there is no problem with the
fact that mkisofs links against libschily and libscg.
*) Any definition of "the work" that would include libraries that have been
developed independently from the GPLd work would be in violation with the
Copyright law anyway.
As a hint: "the work mkisofs" is the plain files that can be found in the
sub-directory "mkisofs" in the cdrtools source tree. Other sub-directories in
this source tree colletion contain _other_ independent works.
You have to decide whether the GPL is a completely unusable license or whether
there is no problem with mkisofs.....
Jörg
--
EMail:jo...@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
j...@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
joerg.schill...@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog:
http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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