> On Mon, May 10, 1999 at 09:22:18AM -0400, Nils Lohner wrote: > > I have a question along the same lines, but in a different area. I'm > > pretty sure situations like this have come up before, but I don't know > > how they were handled. This is just from a discussion I had with > > someone. > > > > Can you take GPL'ed code and use it with a closed source program? > > i.e. take the GPL'ed program do_everything and someone wants to write a > > library for it that's do_one_more_thing but keep the library closed, is > > that OK? If they want to distribute and sell that, they distribute the
No. This is the entire point of the LGPL. > > source code to the GPL part (with modifications), and the binary > > (executable), right? I would assume it is, but modifications etc. to > > the original GPL code must be made public. Am I missing something here, > > or is that about the extent of it? Or is that illegal under the GPL and > > the entire source code must be made public because its used with some > > GPL'ed code? That's right. This has been enforced before -- the famous(ish) example is when NeXT wanted to release the Objective C portion of GNU CC as a collection of object files and RMS made them rlease it as GPL'ed source instead. > I suggest going to ftp.be.com and checking out the /pub/gnu directory. > They have done exactly this with their boot loader. It uses some parts of > the Linux kernel (those parts are released in source), and some parts are > proprietary (thos parts are only in .o object format). So you can > conceivably rebuild the boot loader with the source and objects provided. If I am not very much mistaken, this is illegal and something should be done about it. --phouchg "For a price I'd do about anything, except pull the trigger: for that I'd need a pretty good cause" -- Queensryche, "Revolution Calling" PGP 5.0 key (0xE024447449) at http://cif.rochester.edu/~jpt/pubkey.txt
