Dr. Hawkins wrote:

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Robert Mann <rman at free.fr> wrote:
On the frontier :: if the name of the author is not specified in the stack,
then it'll be hard to argue against common knowledge.

That just isn't the law.

Not in the US, and AFAIK, not any country subscribing to the Berne convention.

*HOWEVER*, the GPL3 of the community version *DOES* infect executables
created with the community version (it's license requires that the
derivative work have the same license).

FWIW, the inventor of the GPL prefers "inherit" rather than "infect", since the GPL is a choice authors can make and "infect" has negative connotations that make that choice sound like an accident.

But this discussion raises a peripheral question:

How does the GPL3 used by the Community Edition affect libraries?

GPL3 distinguishes "dynamic linking" as not affected, while "static linking" explicitly inherits GPL freedoms.

The AGPL goes one step further to apply to the sort of "dynamic linking" in connections made by clients to servers, but in the LC world that usually only affects LiveCode Server and Kevin has already noted that he chose not to use AGPL for Server specifically to avoid encumbrance by clients.

For desktop LiveCode, can one build a library and license it under the GPL3-compatible LGPL for use in proprietary standalones as long as it remains a separate stack file?

Conversely, can one build a proprietary library and use it with the Community Edition (not password-protected, of course)?

There seems to be much variance over how to define "dynamically linked" and "derivative work".

For example, the Wordpress and Drupal project owners have both explicitly stated that they believe plugins and even themes constitute "derivative works" and therefore inherit GPL rights and responsibilities.

Yet even within those communities there are some who sell proprietary add-ons, to the best of my knowledge without legal intervention.

Where exactly is the line drawn with LC libraries when distributed as separate stack files?

--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World
 LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
 Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
 Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys

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