Hello, On Jun 6 16:40 Alessandro Zummo wrote (shortened): > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FSWithNFLibs
As far as I see, it seems to be allowed from the legal point of view to have free software that uses non-free libraries because they only say that the program won't be fully usable or not usable at all in a free environment but they don't say it violates the GPL. But what does "If it depends on a non-free library to run at all, it cannot be part of a free operating system such as GNU" mean? Is "cannot be part of GNU" meant as a license violation or just that it cannot be included in a "free operating system" simply because it is useless? But why can't there be a program in a "free operating system" which requires a proprietary library which checks if the library file is there before it dlopens it and if the library file is not installed, it shows a message where to get it (e.g. where to download it - or perhaps it even runs a download user GUI with appropriate license information). For example a GPL media player which supports only a proprietary media format. Such a program would be even useful without the proprietary library installed because it would show the user a message where to get the missing part. Of course the proprietary library might be not available for all hardware architectures but this does not mean that such a GPL media player is useless in any case. Of course all proprietary media formats and all proprietary device communication protocols are against the intention of a "Free World" but this does not mean that programs for such formats/protocols are useless. They even say: --------------------------------------------------------------- If the program is already written using the non-free library, perhaps it is too late to change the decision. You may as well release the program as it stands, rather than not release it. --------------------------------------------------------------- This seems to indicate that free software that uses non-free libraries is in compliance with the GPL from the legal point of view. Of course this is only what I perceive right now from what I read there and of course I am not a lawyer! Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex
