On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:16:53 -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [quoting Michael Poole] > > It is not hard: Some distribution of Eclipse is only encumbered by the > > GPL if it requires a GPLed work to correctly operate. You may have > > some odd version of Eclipse, but the standard releases have no such > > requirement.
A distribution of Eclipse is only encumbered by the GPL if it is a derivative work of the GPL, such as by cut-and-paste of a piece of GPL code in excess of "de minimis" standards. The GPL simply doesn't address the "needs GPL code to work properly" case; consider Makefiles that only work with GNU make. [snip] > Some distribution of Eclipse is encumbered by the GPL if it, that > distribution, includes a copy of a GPL'd work (and it is not mere > aggregation, which this certainly isn't). So shipping Eclipse+Kaffe > is not OK. Shipping Eclipse+otherJVM is fine. Copies are OK, derivative works aren't. Eclipse+Kaffe isn't a derivative work and doesn't create one during execution either. Cheers, - Michael
