On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Peter Bierman wrote:
> At 7:15 PM -0500 12/29/00, Tom Lane wrote:
> >Alfred Perlstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> Rasmus Lerdorf warned one of you guys that simply linking to GNU
> >> readline can contaminate code with the GPL.
> >
> >> Readline isn't LGPL which permits linking without lincense issues,
> >> it is GPL which means that if you link to it, you must be GPL as
> >> well.
> >
> >I do not believe that. In fact, I'll go further and say "Horsepucky!"
> >The GPL applies to works that "contain or are derived from" a GPL'd
> >program. Linking to a separately distributed library does not cause
> >psql either to contain or to be derived from libreadline.
>
>
> Some very highly paid lawyers disagree with you.
>
> That doesn't make them right, but keep in mind that no one has defined "derivitive
>work" in a court of law. And RMS isn't a lawyer.
>
> I agree readline doesn't taint PG, but IMHO, the more distance between the GPL and
>PG, the better.
OK. For the last time, here's the story about linking, as agreed upon by
almost damn everyone:
a) dynamic linking is kosher, as of GPL2
b) static linking is OK, but you may NOT redistribute resulting libraries.
I hope the above will put the discussion about readline to an end, as
Postgres does not distribute statically linked binaries.
-alex
