Alon Bar-Lev wrote:
Again... I am sorry but I must disagree... WHERE THE CODE RUN IS NOT AN ISSUE. The issue is how tightly your code is with another code. A protocol and API specification are the same, since they can replace one another...
I would agree with this. Why does the actual _mechanism_ of DATA sharing matter? Can somebody explain, what is the difference between calling PKCS#11 as a shared library and passing a message to some daemon to pefrorm the work and return the result? The amount of sharing and coupling between the two modules is EXACTLY THE SAME, the only difference is the MECHANISM used to accomplish that sharing (i.e. shared address space in the case of dynamic library or UNIX sockets in the case of stand-alone daemon). What's more, UNIX sockets can be implemented via shared memory. What would GPL say in _that_ case? And I would try again to emphasize DATA sharing, not CODE sharing. You use PKCS#11 API to share DATA with the library[1]. In my opinion, data sharing does not and cannot (in any common-sense interpretation) constitute a "derivative work". Then again, I'm not a lawyer. The application calling PKCS#11 one way or another shares ONLY data with it, not its code! And I don't think that GPL says anything about data sharing. So it would be (maybe) legal and GPL-compliant to link in proprietary PKCS#11 .so into GnuPG. [1] There are some cases when you can register a callback to be called by PKCS#11 into you application. This is again a moot point, since even Windows do that: call app callback from the kernel (e.g. the ubiquitous "WndProc"). Paradoxically, it seems that GnuPG would be allowed to used closed-source MS CAPI because it is delivered as a "part of the operating system". The way CAPI works is: your application -> CAPI -> back-end driver So your application interacts with CAPI (delivered as a part of the operating system - an exception permitted by the GPL, as someone quoted in this thread), and CAPI interacts with the back-end driver for the particular hardware device.
In your view I can write a PKCS#11 daemon that exposes SOAP as protocol... And this way to use PKCS#11 in GPLed application. But I cannot use the PKCS#11 directly... This is CRAZY!!! You are fooling your-self if you think there is a difference between the two...
> Yes, I agree with this viewpoint. The only difference is in the MECHANISM to accomplish the sharing. BTW, let us know when you get the reply from the FSF. I'm really curious..
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