kdelibs and the GPL

[Rob Kaper]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 03:25:54PM +0200, Rolf Magnus wrote:
> By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication 
> mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used 
> for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the 
> semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex 
> internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts 
> as combined into a larger program. 
> ===============================================================================
> 
> What you describe sounds like it falls into the category "intimate enough".

Well.. "ultimately judges will decide", "we *believe*" (emphasis added) and
"*could* be a *basis* to consider" (emphasis added) do not sound very
convincing.

Well, um, it could be, might not be, but it could be, a basis - not an actual
reason just a basis - to consider..

A shell script can manipulate many internal and complex datastructures of
the shell itself when it is interpreted. Intimate enough to force all shell
(or for that matter, PHP/Perl, which allows you to change the PHP engine
behaviour as well) scripts to be licensed compatible to the licenses of
those environments?

The GPL is on very thin ice here and the FSF seems to know it, looking at
how they can only guess about the legal answer to the question "1 or 2".

Rob
-- 
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