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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!uunet!in3.uu.net!205.252.116.190!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newspump.sol.net!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!ddsw1!not-for-mail From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs whatever Date: 7 Feb 1997 17:34:14 -0600 Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation Lines: 31 Message-ID: <5dge5m$f0o$1@Mercury.mcs.net> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5claa2$jq1@cynic.portal.ca> <5dask0$13q0@usenet1y.prodigy.net> <5dfnn2$b3g@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:156720 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5914 In article <5dfnn2$b3g@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>, Hugh McCurdy <hmccurdy@ix.netcom.com> wrote: >>| As a matter of fact, that has been done. In NetBSD we now have a >>| non-GPL'd zlib, and we're writing front ends for it so we can get >>| rid of gzip and gunzip and the like. >> >> That really sounds dumb. GPL doesn't say you have to give away the >> operating system if you include gzip, why would you write another >> program to do the same thing? >>| >It also is impossible. Let's say you write or port a GPL program to >MS-DOS. Certainly, you can't be expected to give away MS-DOS. > >Either I have a serious misunderstanding of law or someone else does. At issue is whether your new work is in fact a 'derivative work' of something under GPL. If you just work with a published interface (as an application does with an OS) it clearly is not. However if you link against a library, it probably is, although the LGPL allows this. But consider the case where you need code from some other library with different terms included with some GPL'd code. For example, I put together a DOS port of GNUtar with both tcp and aspi libraries from other sources with free but different copyrights. Even though the parts are freely available separately it is probably technically a violation to distribute them combined in a program. How does that help anyone? Les Mikesell les@mcs.com