Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Dalibor Topic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> How Kaffe, the GPld interpreter, goes about loading GPLd parts of >> *itself* into memory, whether it uses JNI, KNI, dlopen, FFI, libtool, >> or other "bindings", or whether it asks the user to tilt switches on >> an array of light bulbs is irrelevant to the copyright law. The GPld >> interpreter still can't impose restrictions on its input or use. Just >> like a GPLd garbage collector going off in the background of my text >> editor when I'm composing a reply doesn't suddendly make this reply >> message GPLd. >> >> Now, before you go off ranting about Kaffe's native libraries, please >> take a moment to let the fact sink in that while these native >> libraries are the result of Kaffe developers being a somewhat clever >> bunch at developing software and having heard about benefits of >> seperating one's program into sepearte modules, those modules are >> nevertheless *a part of the interpreter*, and as the copyright law >> says, the GPLd interpreter can't impose restrictions on its >> input. They even get compiled in statically on Debian for debian's >> kaffe package. > > Very nicely said. This is exactly why it's legal to make and > distribute Eclipse and other free Java programs in the first place. > > On the other hand, it's also exactly why it's problematic for Debian > to distribute an Eclipse which incorporates a copy of the GPL'd Kaffe.
Please start using a dictionary with the same definition of "include", "incorporate" and similar words as everybody else's dictionaries use. -- Måns Rullgård [EMAIL PROTECTED]
